Speaker 2
You know, you mentioned earlier that a big fear is that Russia delivers that weapon to Iran that allows them to deliver the capability of delivering a nuclear warhead to Israel or other places in the Middle East that they might target Saudi Arabia, UAE, etc. How does the United States feel and how does Israel feel about this possibility that Russia, you know, holds this card?
Speaker 1
Yeah, the sense I get is that nobody thinks that Russia wants to do that because Russia itself doesn't necessarily want a nuclear RMD Ron as well, right? They're a partner of convenience right now, but that doesn't mean they'll always be a partner to Russia and its allies. And so they, there's a sense that Russia doesn't want to go that far. And one of the things I did here as well is that this is maybe one of the reasons also why Israel is reluctant to get more deeply into war with Ukraine because the deeper they get involved in the war and back in Ukraine, the less incentive Russia is going to have to not provide Iran with that kind of capability. So there's a lot of calculus going on here about how much to antagonize Russia and waiting to see what Russia is going to provide to Iran. So far, Russia, according to US intelligence, is training Iranians on how to fly some of their advanced fighter jets, but no indications yet that they've delivered any of those fighter jets or anything like that. So it's very much in the formative stages and I think that US and Israeli officials are also calculating what they can and can't do for Ukraine, especially here in Israel, that would ensure that Russia doesn't.
Speaker 2
Well, Diane, thank you very much for helping us understand these really complex equations that go surround Ukraine, surround Iran, Israel, and the United States. A lot of us only think about Ukraine as a regional situation, but clearly it's much, much more than that when you look at the factors involved in the Middle East. So thank you very much for helping us understand that. Anytime, thanks for
Speaker 3
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