Is Iran another Iraq?
Sources & Methods
NPR
4.9 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 9 March 2026
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Haass was in charge of planning for the invasion as a top official in the State Department. He was a voice of dissent within the administration. Now he's president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the Home & Away newsletter. He talks to Host Mary Louise Kelly about the Trump administration's foreign policy and national security apparatus and where he sees it falling short on Iran.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Parallels are poor planning, overly ambitious goals, not thinking through the aftermath. |
| 0:09.7 | Is Iran another Iraq? |
| 0:12.6 | And where does Iran fit in the story of the Trump presidency and how he's remaking the rules-based international order? |
| 0:20.7 | This is sources and methods from NPR. |
| 0:25.6 | I'm Mary Louise Kelly. |
| 0:27.1 | This is one of our special interview episodes that we share from time to time. |
| 0:31.4 | We will be back here again, as usual, on Thursday, |
| 0:34.5 | to unpack the biggest Natsakh news of the week. |
| 0:37.7 | Today, our focus is Iran, and let's start with one of the many statements Donald Trump has made about Iran in recent days. |
| 0:45.0 | If we didn't hit within two weeks, they would have had a nuclear weapon. |
| 0:48.1 | If we didn't do the B2 attack a number of months ago, they would have a nuclear weapon. |
| 0:53.4 | Two weeks, he's saying. He's saying Tehran was two weeks they would have a nuclear weapon. Two weeks, he's saying. |
| 0:55.0 | He's saying Tehran was two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon. |
| 0:59.0 | That is impossible to square with what Trump has said before that Iran's nuclear program was, quote, obliterated by airstrikes last summer. |
| 1:08.5 | That claim about two weeks, it also stirs memories for those of us old enough to remember another Republican president about to walk the U.S. into a war in the Middle East and warning of an urgent nuclear threat. |
| 1:21.7 | We cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. |
| 1:29.5 | George W. Bush back in 2002, talking about Iraq and that Saddam Hussein posed a grave |
| 1:36.9 | and gathering danger, a claim based on intelligence that turned out to be wrong. |
| 1:42.0 | Richard Haas is President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. |
| 1:46.1 | He had a front row seat to the planning for war in Iraq as the number three official at the State Department. |
| 1:52.1 | We called him to ask about that and to offer the long view on the moment the U.S. now finds itself in. |
| 1:58.3 | Richard Haas, welcome to sources and methods. |
... |
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