The

The Hello and welcome to another episode of Politics Theory Other.

My name is Alex Doherty and my guest today are Ascanda Siddhii Burajedi and Nathaniel George. On the 27th of September,

Israel dramatically escalated its war on Hezbollah by assassinating its Secretary General

Hassan Nasrallah. Four days later, Iran responded to the killing of its long-standing ally

by launching a missile attack on Israel, targeting military and intelligence facilities.

In today's episode, I spoke with Ascanda and Nate about whether the killing of Nazrallah

represents an existential threat to Hezbollah and about the group's prospects in combating

Israel's ground invasion. We also talked about the effectiveness of Iran's missile strikes

and the degree to which Iran has been able to restore any measure of deterrence.

And we also touched on the dire humanitarian situation in Lebanon, which comes on top of years of grinding economic and political crisis.

Finally, we discussed the position of the United States and the apparent appetite in Washington

for settling accounts with the US's regional adversaries.

Escandar Sazigi Borajedi is a historian of West Asia, with a particular focus on the

modern intellectual and political history of Iran, and he's the author of Revolution and

Its Discontents, Political Thought and Reform in Iran.

He teaches at the University of York.

My second guest is Nathaniel George, who teaches at Soas, part of the University of London.

Nate is the author of the forthcoming book, A Third World War, Revolution, Counter-Revolution, and Empire in Lebanon.

Music revolution, counter-revolution and empire in Lebanon. So, Ascanda, there's been a lot of conflicting opinions regarding the effectiveness of Iran's

missile attack on October 1st, in which Iran fired 181 missiles at military targets in Israel. Both Israel and the United

States characterized the attack as a failure and there were no reports of military casualties,

...