How will the Iran war end? | with Shashank Joshi
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 12 March 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this special edition of Coffee House Shots, Tim Shipman is joined by defence editor at the Economist, Shashank Joshi. Two weeks in to the conflict in Iran, they give the definitive take on where we are at, the range of scenarios that the UK government are preparing for, and – crucially – how it could all end.
Produced by Megan McElroy and Oscar Edmondson.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Coffeehouse Shots, The Spectator's Daily Politics podcast. I'm Tim Shipman, |
| 0:10.2 | political editor of The Spectator, and I'm delighted today to be joined by Shashank Joshi, |
| 0:15.0 | who's the defence editor of The Economist and also a sufficiently august character that he holds roles |
| 0:20.2 | at Roussey and at King's College London as well. |
| 0:24.1 | Good morning to you, Shashank. |
| 0:25.7 | Very good morning. |
| 0:26.8 | So let's do a sort of recap really on where we are with this war. |
| 0:31.2 | It's been going on for pushing two weeks now. |
| 0:34.8 | What's been achieved? |
| 0:36.1 | What is left to do in terms of military degradation, do you |
| 0:39.9 | think? And you've written some interesting stuff today about quite how America and Israel |
| 0:44.2 | have gone about their targeting. Whatever you think of the politics of this situation, |
| 0:48.2 | this is a pretty extraordinary military operation, isn't it? It is. I mean, if you look back at |
| 0:51.9 | 1991, the first Gulf War, that was a really seminal moment, wasn't it? It was. I mean, if you look back at 1991, the first Gulf War, that was a really |
| 0:54.2 | seminal moment, wasn't it? It was a moment at which America flaunted its incredible military |
| 0:59.9 | power, its ability to do precision bombing from the air, to knit together satellites, precision |
| 1:04.8 | bombs, computer networks in ways that people hadn't seen before. And it was a moment at which |
| 1:10.0 | countries like China took notice and said, wow, we've really amazed by before. And it was a moment at which countries like China |
| 1:10.8 | took notice and said, wow, we've really amazed by this. We've got to modernize rapidly ourselves. |
| 1:16.8 | So I think when we look back, these opening days of Operation Epic Fury, whatever happens at the |
| 1:21.6 | political level, and I think there's some huge problems with the planning, I think operationally |
| 1:26.0 | this will be seen as an incredible success, |
... |
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