Iran's revolutionary regime is built to resist shocks
The World
PRX
4.6 • 943 Ratings
🗓️ 3 March 2026
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was a jolt for Iran, but its political system is built to sustain abrupt change. Also, a look back at the Russian government's troubled history with high-profile poisonings. And, how Israelis are celebrating Purim underground this year. Plus, how the European Union is responding to the US and Israel's war with Iran.
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Samir Patel, editor-in-chief at Quanta Magazine. Our mission at Quanta is to cover what we call basic or fundamental research in science and math. That means the kind of work that's driven by curiosity and discovery and the search for knowledge. We're interested in how and why everything around us works the way that it does. On our brand new show, the Quanta |
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| 0:30.9 | from the frontiers of science and math. |
| 0:41.9 | These strikes on Iran have taken out the country's leader. The U.S. President has been calling on Iranians to rise up and show that they are in charge. |
| 0:47.9 | The idea that everyone is going to the streets to uproot the system or the establishment |
| 0:53.8 | in Iran is more of wishful thinking. |
| 0:58.0 | I'm Carolyn Beeler. And I'm Marco Werman today, how succession works in the Islamic Republic |
| 1:02.9 | and how the current war might or might not upended. Plus, the current status of Iran's nuclear |
| 1:08.4 | capabilities. You can't bomb a program like this away. |
| 1:12.6 | Also, we return to the scene of a poisoning in a Russian hotel. |
| 1:16.6 | I'm sitting here waiting for the tea to steep. |
| 1:21.1 | All that becomes much more of a reality. |
| 1:24.2 | And repurposing old movie music for a current hit from Brazil. |
| 1:28.9 | Today, here on the world. |
| 1:35.1 | This is the world. I'm Marco Wurman. And I'm Carolyn Beeler. Thank you for joining us today. |
| 1:43.6 | U.S. citizens in more than a dozen countries in the Middle East have been urged to leave, as President Trump says, the worst is ahead for Iran. |
| 1:47.5 | Explosions shook across Tehran for a fourth night. |
| 1:57.5 | And fighting continues to escalate across the region. Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Hezbollah targets there have killed more than 50 people and displaced more than 50,000. |
| 2:02.4 | That's according to the Lebanese government. A reporter in Beirut for Al Jazeera went to a suburb |
| 2:07.2 | that was hit by those strikes and got as close as she could to the scene while firefighters put out the flames. |
| 2:12.8 | The smoke in the distance, I saw three buildings level to the ground. And these strikes keep coming in... |
... |
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