Jared Malsin

This is a very unpredictable situation.

In some ways, this situation was unthinkable just a few months or a few years ago.

And now you have a US military offensive against Iran.

This is an absolutely seismic series of events that we've seen in the Middle East in the last 48 hours or so.

You have the Iranian regime now facing a kind of existential challenge to its authority, lashing out in response, launching waves upon waves of missile and drone strikes across the region, both on Israel and on Gulf Arab countries that has caused chaos.

It has shut down the airport in Dubai, one of the world's busiest, and also caused a surge in oil prices.

and really just created a lot of uncertainty about what comes next in Iran, in the region, and globally.

What we know is that Trump said this would be a major military operation that he says is aimed at dealing a severe setback both to Iran's

nuclear program he said he wanted to raise iran's missile program to the ground he said he wanted to quote annihilate iran's navy what we're hearing from sources is that this is expected to continue for days beyond that we don't really know what we also don't know is how long either side can sustain this

There's basically no precedent in modern history in which a government has been overthrown through airstrikes alone.

And that's what experts, military officials and security analysts who follow these things will tell you is that it's basically never happened.

And so it's an open question going forward as to what will this campaign of airstrikes accomplish and what will Iranians do whenever it's over?

— Iran is facing a kind of revolutionary situation.

This is the most significant challenge that the regime in Iran has faced since it came into existence after its last revolution in 1979.

There have been enormous protests throughout the country, and there's been a very severe crackdown in which hundreds, if not thousands, of people appear to have been killed in the last few days.

And you're seeing a very real risk that the regime could fall out of power.

And everyone is holding their breath to see what's going to happen next.

Iran has obviously been under international U.S.-led sanctions for many years, which means its economy is under severe strain.

That totally isolates Iran, cuts off the banking system from the rest of the world, and has put it in this very unstable situation to begin with.

One of the largest banks in Iran collapsed.