For weeks, after an Israeli strike that killed a senior Hezbollah commander and the killing of a Hamas leader in Tehran, tensions between Israel and Iran have spiked. So far, Iran has yet to follow through on its threats to retaliate against Israel. But these heightened tensions, like the period earlier this year when Israel killed senior officers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps at a diplomatic facility in Syria and Iran responded by launching hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel, are inflection points in a broader regional rivalry between the two states. Jonathan Panikoff, director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, joins this episode to examine that rivalry.

The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.