Iran and America’s Complicated Recent History

Angry Planet

Matthew Gault

War, Politics, Conflict, Government, History, News

4.3 • 882 Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2019

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On June 13, explosions—probably from Limpet Mines—hit two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. The United States has blamed Iran. On June 20, Iran shot down one of the United States’ Navy RQ-4 Global Hawk drones, basically a fancy unmanned spy plane.

In the aftermath, US President Donald Trump considered a retaliatory action, then pulled back. I’m recording this at 5pm on Friday, June 21. It’s possible between then and the time you hear this, the situation will have changed again.

Iran is complicated. In the American imagination, it’s become a stand in for a power in direct opposition to the United States. It’s famously part of George W Bush’s Axis of evil and, it often feels, Washington’s Hawks have long wanted an excuse to go to war there.

So. Today. Three shows from War College’s past that, strung together, represent a closer and more nuanced look at Iran. All with remastered audio.

The first is a look at the strength of the Iranian military during the end of the Obama presidency, and before the signing of the Nuclear Deal. The second is an interview with New York Times journalist Ben Hubbard about Iran’s use of Hezbollah. The third is deep dive into Iranian domestic politics and its role in Syria circa 2018.

I present all of it in an attempt to paint a picture of how we got where we are today. America’s relationship with Iran is deeper, bigger, and more complicated than one President in one moment.

You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Love this podcast.
0:02.0	Support this show through the A-Cast supporter feature.
0:05.0	It's up to you how much you give and there's no regular commitment.
0:09.0	Just click the link in the show description to support now. You're listening to War College, a weekly podcast that brings you the stories from behind the
0:30.2	front lines.
0:31.2	Here are your hosts. Hello, welcome to War College. I am your host Matthew Galt. I had an episode all recorded and set together about the great power competition between China and the United States, but that can sit for a week.
0:57.0	Iran is more important.
0:59.0	On June 13th, explosions, probably from Limp at mines, hit two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
1:05.0	The United States has blamed Iran.
1:07.1	On June 20th, Iran shot down one of the United States Navy's RQ4 global Hawk drones, basically a fancy unmanned spy plane. In the aftermath, the
1:16.1	U.S. President Donald Trump considered retaliatory action then pulled back. I'm recording
1:21.1	this at 5 p.m. on Friday, June 21st. It's possible between then and the time you hear this
1:26.4	the situation will have completely changed. Iran is complicated. America's relationship
1:32.4	with Iran is complicated. America's relationship with Iran is complicated. In the recent American
1:37.0	imagination, Iran has become this country that stands in direct opposition to all of
1:42.4	everything it's trying to accomplish in the Middle East.
1:44.8	It's famously part of George W Bush's axis of evil, and it often feels Washington's
1:50.3	hawks have long wanted to go to war there.
1:53.7	So, today, three shows for more colleges passed,
1:57.8	most of them led by our long gone host, Jason Fields,
2:01.4	strung together, they represent a closer and more nuanced look at Iran, all of it
2:07.4	with remastered audio. The first is a look at the strength of the Iranian military during the end of the Obama presidency
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Matthew Gault, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Matthew Gault and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.