Sep 2, 2026 · 1 hr 4 min · 20 segments
SEASON-01 EPISODE-01 Host Dr. Jeff Taliaferro and co-host Joshua Paul welcome guests Emma Ashford from the Stimson Center, and Thomas Juneau from the University of Ottowa.
Jeff TaliaferroHostThomas JuneauGuest
Emma AshfordGuest
Joshua PaulHost
It began weeks after the special operations raid which seized a Venezuelan president, now former Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife from their residence in Caracas and extradited them to the United States.
It decapitated the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran, killing the longtime supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
who had been in power for 35 years, along with other senior members of the political and military leadership of Iran.
And the Trump administration said that this was a war that was intended to achieve a variety of objectives, and specific objective tended to change hour from hour.
First, it was to eliminate Iran's nuclear program, which the administration claimed that it had eliminated the previous summer when the United States joined Israel in bombing Iran's enrichment facilities.
Then another objective was to eliminate Iran's capacity to launch long-range missiles in the region.
And the war aims changed depending on the time of day in which official administration was speaking.
Well, the president has said that we have won the war and that Iran is begging for a negotiated settlement or is going to capitulate at least three dozen times over the past six months.
You know, at one point, the administration and the president was calling for Iran's unconditional surrender, which was never a practical war aim, given the fact that this was a war that was being waged entirely with air power and with naval air power, and there was no consideration of actually invading and occupying Iran, so unconditional surrender.
And then there was the president's threat at one point in March to end Iran's civilization if Iran didn't agree to American demands.
But yet this war had continued despite the incredible disparity in economic and military capabilities between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other side.
So, I mean, here is a regional power, a regional power that has been on the nuclear threshold for the better part of 20 years, but nonetheless, a state that is many orders of magnitude weaker than the United States, whose economy has been battered by decades of economic sanctions and by its own economic mismanagement.
It began weeks after the special operations raid which seized a Venezuelan president, now former Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife from their residence in Caracas and extradited them to the United States.
It decapitated the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran, killing the longtime supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
who had been in power for 35 years, along with other senior members of the political and military leadership of Iran.
And the Trump administration said that this was a war that was intended to achieve a variety of objectives, and specific objective tended to change hour from hour.
First, it was to eliminate Iran's nuclear program, which the administration claimed that it had eliminated the previous summer when the United States joined Israel in bombing Iran's enrichment facilities.
Then another objective was to eliminate Iran's capacity to launch long-range missiles in the region.
And the war aims changed depending on the time of day in which official administration was speaking.
Well, the president has said that we have won the war and that Iran is begging for a negotiated settlement or is going to capitulate at least three dozen times over the past six months.
You know, at one point, the administration and the president was calling for Iran's unconditional surrender, which was never a practical war aim, given the fact that this was a war that was being waged entirely with air power and with naval air power, and there was no consideration of actually invading and occupying Iran, so unconditional surrender.
And then there was the president's threat at one point in March to end Iran's civilization if Iran didn't agree to American demands.
But yet this war had continued despite the incredible disparity in economic and military capabilities between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other side.
So, I mean, here is a regional power, a regional power that has been on the nuclear threshold for the better part of 20 years, but nonetheless, a state that is many orders of magnitude weaker than the United States, whose economy has been battered by decades of economic sanctions and by its own economic mismanagement.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
