Likely US Escalatory Goals

In Episode 471 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Gregg Carlstrom — Middle East correspondent for The Economist, based in Dubai and Riyadh, and a veteran reporter covering the region for fifteen years — about the mood across the Gulf States since the US and Israeli military campaign against Iran began on February 28th, and what the conflict's trajectory reveals about the widening gap between operational success and strategic victory.

The conversation opens with an assessment of shifting opinion inside Saudi Arabia and across the Gulf — from early opposition to the war to hawkish demands in some quarters that the United States, having opened Pandora's box, now finish what it started.

Carlstrom and Kofinas examine the human and material toll the conflict has taken so far, the extent and internal logic of Iranian restraint in targeting Gulf infrastructure, and the implications of Iran's decentralized Mosaic Defense Doctrine for command and control and efforts at de-escalation.

The conversation then turns to the growing gap between the operational success of US and Israeli airstrikes and the larger strategic picture — including the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and its consequences for global oil and LNG markets — before examining the divergent strategic objectives of Washington and Tel Aviv, the nuclear question as it applies to both Israel and the United States, the opaque power struggles within what remains of the Iranian regime, and what a near-term resolution — or further escalation — might look like.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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Episode Recorded on 03/24/2026