episode-header-image

Feb 2024

47m 57s

What Is Tehran Thinking?

About this episode

A drone strike by an Iran-backed militant group, which resulted in the deaths of three U.S. service members, threatens to push the Middle East into a wider regional conflict. Iran has distanced itself from the attack, while President Biden has said that the U.S. will respond.

Middle East experts Vali Nasr and Sanam Vakil join Ravi Agrawal to discuss what Tehran might be thinking at this moment. Nasr is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Vakil is the director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa program.

Suggested reading:

Jack Detsch: 3 Options for How Biden Could Respond to Iran

Adam Weinstein and Steven Simon: U.S. Troops Are Dangerously Vulnerable in the Middle East

Ravi Agrawal: Ian Bremmer: Attack on U.S. Troops a ‘Red Line’ for Biden

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Up next

Are Young Americans Swinging Right?

43 percent of voters under 30 supported U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, a 7 percent jump in support from both the 2016 and 2020 elections. What’s underpinning this rightward shift among young voters? Conservative commentator and journalist Emily Jashinsky shares ... Show More

The World After Oct. 7, 2023

Tuesday marks two years since Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Since then, Israel has decimated Gaza in what many independent organizations are calling a genocide and attacked several countries in the region. How have all of these events impacted the world? FP columnist ... Show More

A U.S. Shutdown and a Constitutional Crisis

With increased polarization and ongoing budgetary disputes, the U.S. government does not seem to be acting in the way that the American forefathers intended. Host Ravi Agrawal brings on historian Jill Lepore to share more. Lepore is a professor at Harvard University and the autho ... Show More

Recommended Episodes

Could Iran attack Israel? And Can Biden Stop It?

Today, we look at President Joe Biden’s warning that Iran is threatening to launch a “significant attack” on Israel.Tensions have risen following what is believed to be an Israeli attack on an embassy in Syria, which killed senior Iranians. America has promised “ironclad” support ... Show More

Iran's New Headache: Its Own Proxies

As Iranian-backed proxies continue to step up attacks across the Middle East, experts have been closely watching Iranian leadership for their response. Meanwhile, the US continues to weigh its next moves after a recent attack that killed three US service members in Jordan. In thi ... Show More

What does Iran want?

After months of tension and hostility in the Middle East over the Gaza-Israel conflict, Iran has publicly stated its desire to avoid a regional conflict. It has however displayed its military force on several fronts.There have been missile strikes. Iran targeted militant bases in ... Show More

Is it still possible to prevent a wider conflict after Iran's attack on Israel?

For the first time ever, a direct Iranian attack on Israel - a barrage of drones and missiles fired in retaliation for a strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria. Most were shot down - but the world watches with deepening concern. Who'll be saying what to whom to try to bring cal ... Show More

Three US soldiers dead: Has Iran miscalculated?

On Sunday, three American troops were killed in a drone strike on a US base in Jordan. At least 34 were wounded. The group responsible for the attack is one of the many Iran-backed militias that operate in the region, and they've now announced that they will halt further attacks ... Show More

Will Iran and America go to war?

The United States has killed Iran’s Qassim Suleimani sparking the most serious situation in the Middle East since ISIS took over huge areas of Iraq in 2014. The late head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard overseas Quds force has spent decades building up Tehran’s army of proxy militi ... Show More

Why Iran Is in Mourning

The killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s most formidable military and intelligence leader, displayed the fault lines in a fractious region. From Iraq to Israel, many victims of the commander’s shadow warfare celebrated his death; but in Tehran, thousands filled the stree ... Show More

Why Iran hates Israel (and America)

Military experts have called Iran's ariel attack on Israel on Saturday night 'ambitious' and warn it could push an already fragile region into a dangerous new phase. On the Sky News Daily, host Matt Barbet examines how Iran and Israel's 'shadow war' has moved out into the open, ... Show More

Iran under Raisi

How will Iran’s new president tackle growing disillusionment at home, a potentially hostile regime on its eastern border and negotiations to revive the nuclear deal? Andrew England, the FT’s Middle East editor, discusses what we can expect from Ebrahim Raisi with Sanam Vakil, dep ... Show More

Listen to millions of songs and podcasts on Anghami