Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. Today we examine how a century of foreign intervention created incompatible national memories between the U.S. and Iran and how Netanyahu exploited that history to maneuver Trump into a war he didn't understand, promising a quick decapitation strike

while knowing full well it would become a months-long regional conflict at minimum.

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our top takes in about 45 minutes

today include Velshi, the Chris Hedges report, Al Jazeera English, factually with Adam Conover,

and unapologetic with Ashfak Karim.

Then in the additional deeper dives half of the show, there will be more in five sections.

Section A, bombs away again.

Section B, Jesus wants a fighter jet.

Section C, how we got here. section D, the three-way Cold War, and section E, Israel's borders, what borders? But first, a reminder to check out

our new show solved on the best of the left YouTube channel. We're really proud of the show we're

making and think you'll get real value out of it. Plus, you checking it out will help us find new viewers on YouTube. So thanks

in advance for all of your views, likes, subscribes, and comments. That's all on the best

of left YouTube channel linked in the show notes. And now, onto the show.

We must understand something of the history of the relationship between the United States and Iran.

Because Americans and Iranians remember the same history very differently.

In fact, I think if you ask 10 Americans to name the most important date in U.S. Iran relations,

most will say 1979, the revolution, the fall of the Shah, the hostage crisis.

For Americans, that's where the story begins.

But for many Iranians, it begins decades earlier.

In fact, you could argue that it begins in 1906.

That was the year of Iran's constitutional revolution when merchants,

clerics, and reformers forced the monarchy to accept a constitution and a parliament. It was one of the first constitutional movements in the Middle East. Iranians were experimenting with

...