The Intelligence from The Economist: The Intelligence: Iran’s dangerous game in Gaza

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Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm Jason Palmer.

And I'm Aura Ogumbi. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

We've been telling you for weeks about all the exclusive good stuff you'll get when you sign up

to our new podcast subscription, Economist Podcasts Plus. Tomorrow, a brand new show launches,

The Weeknd Intelligence. We're going to tell you what it's all about.

And laughing gas inspired the romantic poets and transformed anaesthetics.

Now, the British government is going to ban its recreational use.

Our correspondent investigates the controversy and she does inhale.

But first,

In Syria overnight, American forces carried out airstrikes against bases that it said were

used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its partners. The Defense Department

said the strikes were in response to at least a dozen attacks this month on American personnel

in Syria and Iraq. America's Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the move was

separate and distinct from the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Not everyone's going to see it that way. For decades, Iran has been funding, backing,

and stoking conflicts all over the Middle East, from Syria all the way down to Yemen.

In the Palestinian territories, it's the force behind Hamas. In Lebanon, it props up the militia

group Hezbollah. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken recently said that America would like

to avoid a wider regional conflict. We don't want escalation. We don't want to see a second or

third front develop. Iran might in fact like to see exactly that at its peril.

Iranian leaders are really trying to thread a needle. They want to escalate tensions with the

West, with the US, with Israel. Nicholas Pelham is a Middle East correspondent for The Economist.

But they don't want to trigger a full-blown war. It's a very hard

balance to calibrate. It's very hard to do and very, very dangerous.

So what's the calculus here? What does Iran stand to gain by trying to escalate this conflict?

In a way, they've already pocketed some gains. The biggest win so far has been

the delay to the normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

It appears for the time being that any deal between the two countries is on pause.

That's a big deal, because it would have amounted to a major victory for the United States.

With America's backing, four Arab states have already normalized relations with Israel in

recent years. That's all kind of part of the process known as the Abraham Accords.

Adding Saudi Arabia to that group, the most powerful Arab state, would fundamentally change

regional politics. It would also have left Iran very isolated in a predominantly Sunni-led

region. You've just seen Sunni-Pak brokers working with Israel.

Okay, that's the big picture, the strategic play. What about the short term?

The crisis has, I think, been quite good for the economy. Regional turmoil always helps increase

the price of oil, and oil has risen about $5 a barrel since a mass is deadly assault into Israel

on October the 7th. Of course, Iran is taking advantage of the run-up in prices. They're

also pumping more than 3 million barrels per day, which is the highest it's been since America

withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018. The reason they're able to do that is because

America has just got too much going on to be enforcing sanctions, but also it doesn't want

to add to inflationary pressures, particularly in an election year.

But doesn't all of this kind of create risks also for Iran trying to escalate a war?

Absolutely. I think there's recognition in Iran that if there was to be an all-out war,

it would be an unwinnable one. It could draw Iran into a full-blown conflict with America,

and I think the atollers are realistic enough to want to avoid that. And then they also have to

worry about their domestic base. A regional war could prompt more protests at home by Iranians

who have fed up with their regime's foreign adventures. And it comes at a particularly

tense time in Iran at the moment because Iranian officials have pronounced an Iranian school girl

to be brain dead after she was beaten by morality police at the beginning of the month. And of course,

that evokes memories and outrage on the part of an Iranian population that exactly this time last

year was on the streets protesting against the death in custody of Masa Amini, another young

woman who was arrested by morality police for not properly wearing a veil.

As you say, Nick, it's a very fine line to walk. How does Iran go about escalating just short of

something far worse? Iran has been building up its network of proxies across the entire Middle

East for decades. They're supplied with Iranian arms, they're well-trained. And this network is

known as the Axis of Resistance, and it's become something which for Iran is probably even more

an effective deterrent than its nuclear program. And this is particularly effective in Southern

Lebanon where you have an armed cheer group, Hezbollah, which has more clout and more firepower

than any other force in the country, including its armed forces. And leaders from Hezbollah

have been warning that if Israel was to launch a ground operation, they would consider that to be a

red line and they would act. And so you've seen Israelis that have already been evacuated from

towns along their northern border with Lebanon. You've seen increasing skirmishes across that

border and just the game of tit for tat, which is escalating, and it's really hard to know how that

can be contained. We know that the United States has two carrier strike groups that are already in

the region. On the one hand, that could be a warning particularly to Hezbollah and its backers

not to escalate. On the other, I think there is concern in Lebanon that Israel might take advantage

of that to launch a preemptive strike knowing that it would have American cover. And this game

of brinkmanship could easily spin out of control. And you said this axis of resistance is more of

a network. Who are the other players that matter here? You've got the Puthis in Yemen. They're a

cheer force that have controlled the capital for almost a decade. They've been fighting a war with

Saudi Arabia. They're heavily armed. Last week, they fired three cruise missiles and drones up the

Red Sea towards the Israeli port city of Elat. And those missiles are believed to come from Iran.

They were intercepted by an American destroyer in the Red Sea, but that clearly poses one threat.

And then you've got scores of sheer militias operating in Iraq who pretty much dominate

government there. And in recent days, they've renewed their targeting of American interests in

Iraq. They've been lobbing rockets at bases, housing American troops. So I think there's a

kind of implicit warning that if Hamas falls in Gaza, then Western interests will fall elsewhere in

the region. And how much say so? Does Iran really have overall of these groups? And how much will

they necessarily do what Iran says? Yeah, I think the answer to that is we simply don't know what

Iran is saying is that Hamas launched its breach of the frontier with Israel and Iran did not have

prior knowledge of that operation. The same is also said about Hezbollah's descent into war with

Israel in 2006. So it does seem that these are not groups which operate by remote control. I think

there's also a concern that since Qasem Soleimani, the head of the foreign arm of the Islamic

Revolutionary Guard Corps was killed by America three years ago, the commanders in Iran have

probably lost more control over these groups. So, you know, we know they're heavily armed,

we know that they're ideologically driven, and they could be loose cannons. But of course,

these proxies also have to worry about their own domestic context, and they are juggling with the

dilemma of knowing that if they do escalate, they really could risk alienating the countries that

have given them shelter. And the countries that are giving all of these groups shelter, how have

they responded so far? I don't think particularly positively. If you look at Syria's President

Bashar al-Assad, he's reluctant to enter the fray. He's already concerned, I think, about

Hezbollah and other groups sort of running a mock inside Syria. He doesn't have the Russian presence

that he used to to keep them in check. And he is nervous about the risk that they could provoke

a second, or perhaps a third, front with Israel. And he particularly doesn't want to go into bat

for Hamas. He views them as a group that he harbored, gave them refuge, and then they turned

against him in 2011 when they joined other Syrian rebels in rising up against his rule,

and then picking up arms against him. The Lebanese are also concerned that

they could be dragged into a war between Hezbollah and Israel that is going to kind of pummel

their hopes of a tourism revival. They're already struggling with major crises, financial crises,

and the destruction of infrastructure that was caused by a port explosion. So they're

in no desire for yet another escalation. They're exhausted. And then if you look at Iraq as well,

it's really nervous about being caught in a power struggle between Iran and America. It really wants

a chance just to recover as well. So each of the proxies has to worry about their domestic base,

but then they also have to show that they remain a credible force and are true to their rhetoric

when they say that there are red lines and they will intervene. But what about the strength

of that rhetoric? What happens if any of these satellite groups escalates beyond the point of

no return here? And I think we're already seeing a major escalation. If you kind of rewind the

clock one decade, two decades, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been confined within its own

narrow borders. You haven't seen this dramatic intervention from outside at least since 2006.

And now there's a major risk that that's changing. And there's a risk that if the West is drawn in,

then Russia and China might get involved too. So for the time being, I think Iran has been

quite comfortable pocketing fairly limited gains if the region spins out of control

and into a conflagration. I don't think that's something which anybody is going to come away

from celebrating. Nicholas, thank you very much for your time. Jason, it's always a pleasure.

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I don't know. I can't think of any words. I mean, it's just really nice. Yeah,

I don't know what you want me to say.

Catherine Nixie is our fearless Britain correspondent.

That was the sound of me consuming laughing gas. The British government has just decided that by

the end of the year in Britain, taking laughing gas will be punishable by two years in prison,

and dealing it will be punishable by 14.

You can call it whatever you like, laughing gas, whippets, nitrous oxide,

NOS. It's got lots of different names like most drugs. It's just a gas that you inhale,

usually by putting into a balloon and then sucking the air into you.

People take it because it just feels really nice. It's a very, very benevolent, jolly drug.

Not seen as benevolent by everyone, of course. Its critics condemn it as hippie crap,

and its canisters are described as a plague and its uses described by some as a terrifying epidemic.

People get very cross about nitrous oxide today, but they didn't always. It suffered a spectacular

fall from grace.

This gas was once taken by pretty much anyone who was anyone in intellectual British life.

It breathed life into the romantic poets. It transformed anaesthetics.

According to those who took it, it let you touch the face of heaven.

When one man took it, he said, I believe that the atmosphere of the highest of all possible heavens

will be composed of this gas.

The British chemist Humphrey Davy was particularly associated with it. He tried it initially to see

if it could be used for medical purposes and then just got immensely into it. He wrote pretty much

an entire book in which he gives it to various animals. So he gave it to a bee, which he found

was unable to fly in a straight line. He gave it to a lizard, which staggered around. He gave it to a

butterfly, which was rather sweet. He wrote that the butterfly wrapped his wings around his body and

then fell down senseless.

Scientists discovered laughing us in the 18th century. Just around the time when they were

starting to realize that there apparently is substantial air all around them, in fact,

contained multitudes. A scientist called Joseph Priestley discovered that

there was a dangerously fiery gas in the air that when piped into a jar made candles burn more brightly,

and that was oxygen. He discovered that there was a colorless gas that if you bubbled it through water

made it fizz pleasingly, and that was obviously carbon dioxide, and he was the inventor of soda water.

Auditable scientists discovered this gas that when you piped it into researchers,

made them feel like they had discovered the secrets of the universe. It can give you the

sense of utter omniscience. The psychologist William James would later write that it made

people talk meaningless drivel, and James should know because he took a lot of it and

talked an awful lot of meaningless drivel.

Humphrey Davy, after inhaling gallons of the stuff, declared that nothing exists but thoughts.

James, after he'd taken rather less. So there are no differences, but differences of degree

between different degrees of difference and no difference. These words might be total rubbish,

but the realization that laughing gas inspired the mere chemistry could manipulate a mind.

That was really profound, and that would start to change how people thought about what the brain was.

Or as James put it, something might sound like nonsense, but it is pure on sense.

In modern day England, users have proved almost as enthusiastic as Humphrey Davy was.

Laughing gas is now the second most commonly used illicit drug in England and Wales among 16-24

year olds, after cannabis of course. And it's easy to see why. It's really simple to buy.

It's canisters are sold for use in whipped cream dispensers. You can just buy them on Amazon.

Reviewers actually praise it as an excellent cooking accessory.

There are some reasons to be cautious. It is a drug, and so like any drug there are downsides,

heavy long-term use can cause nerve damage. Prolonged exposure can be problematic.

That's why some hospitals are taking it out as a pain relief, because they don't want their

staff to be damaged by it. Addiction is unlikely, but over-enthusiasm is perfectly possible.

After taking gallons of the stuff, Humphrey Davy definitely became a bit over-keen on it,

and said that he used to start to want it any time he saw anyone breathing,

which was obviously quite a lot of the time. There's been a bit of a police crackdown on it

recently. It was already illegal to deal in it, and that has moved people from using the smaller

canisters to the larger cylinders, which is the equivalent, said one expert, of moving

teenagers from drinking Shandy to drinking Neat Vodka. Critics say that the new law,

when it comes in, will exacerbate this kind of behaviour, people taking the stronger version

rather than the weaker version, and it will just get more dangerous.

And so, as so often a ban might sound like it's on sense, but it's much more likely nonsense.

It's definitely improving now. 11 a.m., 10 first year, most mornings.

Our producers are Rory Galloway and Sarah Lornyuk. Our senior creative producer is William Warren.

Our producers are Kevin Caners and Maggie Kadifa, and our assistant producer is

Henrietta McFarlane, with extra production help this week from Peter Grenitz and Benjiguy.

We'll all see you back here on Monday.

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