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The Jordan Harbinger Show

1297: Iran | Out of the Loop

The Jordan Harbinger Show

Jordan Harbinger

Science, Business, Education

4.8 • 12.3K Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2026

⏱️ 98 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Protests, missiles, and a regime on the ropes — Iran is at a turning point. Ryan McBeth explains the forces driving one of the world's most complex crises.

Welcome to what we're calling our "Out of the Loop" episodes, where we dig a little deeper into fascinating current events that may only register as a blip on the media's news cycle and have conversations with the people who find themselves immersed in them.

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1297

On This Episode of Out of the Loop:

  • Iran is an ancient civilization stretching back 5,000 years — but most Americans only know the post-1979 version, which is like judging Rome entirely by the fall of its empire and missing the aqueducts, art, and architecture that came before.
  • The 1953 CIA-backed coup that toppled Iran's democratically elected government planted the seeds for the 1979 Islamic Revolution — a theocratic regime that crushed dissent, built a proxy empire through Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, and turned the IRGC into its enforcer.
  • Iran's proxy strategy is devastatingly cheap and effective — rather than build a navy, they fund groups like the Houthis to launch missiles based on Iranian targeting intel, giving Tehran plausible deniability while disrupting global shipping and oil markets.
  • AI-generated war footage and disinformation are rapidly becoming a frontline weapon — fake videos of captured soldiers and fabricated attacks spread faster than fact-checkers can respond, and producing convincing deepfakes now costs as little as $12 per video.
  • Despite decades of repression, Iranian citizens continue to protest and push for change — and experts suggest that if the regime falls, Iran's strong collective national identity makes a Libya-style collapse unlikely, offering real hope for a democratic future.
  • And much more!
  • Connect with Jordan on Twitter, on Instagram, and on YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on an Out of the Loop episode, drop Jordan a line at jordan@jordanharbinger.com and let him know!
  • Connect with Ryan McBeth at his website, Twitter, Instagram, and on YouTube. If you’d like to stay on top of what’s happening in the world, subscribe to Ryan’s Substack!

And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps!

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories,

0:08.1

secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical

0:12.0

advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help

0:15.9

you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long-form conversations with a variety

0:20.1

of amazing folks,

0:21.3

spies, CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers, even the occasional Hollywood filmmaker,

0:26.2

hacker, real-life pirate or hostage negotiator.

0:28.8

And if you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode

0:32.2

starter packs.

0:33.2

These are collections of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation, psychology,

0:37.8

geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime and cults, and more. That'll help new listeners

0:42.6

get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start

0:47.0

or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today, a long overdue and long awaited

0:53.0

out of the loop on Iran. I've been getting messages for months

0:56.0

to cover the protests in Iran, but I'd covered them previously, but I was also in the Middle East

1:00.3

and traveling a heck of a time to go to the Middle East. Anyway, today we're finally doing it.

1:05.0

Iran is one of those countries that Americans think they understand because they heard three things,

1:09.4

hostage crisis, nukes, terrorists,

1:11.1

but that's kind of like saying you understand Rome because you watched Gladiator on a plane.

1:15.2

Iran is actually four very different stories wearing the same trench coat, an ancient civilization,

1:20.8

a monarchy that got jerked around by empires, a revolution that became a theocratic nightmare,

1:25.4

and now a modern missile and cyber war with global

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