Jacobin Radio: 2003 All Over Again w/ Kevan Harris
Jacobin Radio
Jacobin
4.7 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 17 March 2026
⏱️ 58 minutes
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Summary
Two weeks into the US-Israeli assault on Iran, every prediction of its architects has collapsed. The regime stands. Protests haven't reignited. Iran’s new Supreme Leader — more hardline than his assassinated father — has vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed. And the war began just as negotiations in Geneva were apparently close to a deal.
Suzi speaks to UCLA sociologist and Iran expert Kevan Harris on Day 14 of Operation Epic Fury. We examine Iran’s domestic political economy, the corrupt economic empire of the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), and the regime's brutal repression after the January uprising.
On the fantasy of regime change by bombing, Kevan says, “There are zero historical cases of air power bombing a country into revolution from below. Zero." Every US intelligence agency told the White House this. They went ahead anyway. It’s 2003 all over again.
Kevan describes Israel’s war strategy as a widening gyre with no limit and no endpoint — one likely to produce another war on Iran within two years. That's why, Kevan argues, building an anti-war movement the Left’s most urgent task. "We might have a hot summer in the United States."
Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Jacobin Radio. I'm Susie Wiseman. |
| 0:11.5 | Two weeks ago, on February 28th, the U.S. and Israel launched what they call Operation Epic Fury, nearly 900 strikes in 12 hours on Iran. The opening Salvo killed Supreme |
| 0:23.8 | Leader Ali Khomeini, dozens of senior officials, and approximately 170 civilians |
| 0:29.6 | when a missile struck a girl's school near Bandar Abbas. Iran responded with retaliatory |
| 0:36.4 | missile and drone strikes across the Middle |
| 0:39.3 | East. The Strait of Armuz, the waterway through which a fifth of the world's oil normally |
| 0:44.1 | passes, is effectively closed. Oil is at $100 a barrel, and more than three million Iranians |
| 0:50.4 | have been displaced. 13 American service members have been killed. |
| 0:54.6 | We're recording this on day 14, and there's no exit strategy. |
| 0:59.2 | The war began, we now know, while diplomatic negotiations in Geneva were apparently close |
| 1:04.6 | to a breakthrough. |
| 1:05.8 | Iran had reportedly agreed to stop enriching uranium, but instead of a deal, we got a war. |
| 1:11.6 | And now Iran is a new supreme leader, Mokhtaba Hamenei, the hardliner son of the man who was assassinated in the first hours of the attack. |
| 1:20.1 | His first public statement, the strait stays closed and attacks on U.S. military assets in the Gulf will continue. Trump says the war is, quote, |
| 1:30.4 | very complete, pretty much. Netanyahu says Israel is not done yet. That visible rift between the two |
| 1:37.9 | allies tells you something about where this war is going and where it isn't. To make sense of all |
| 1:43.1 | of this, the history that produced it, the Iranian society being bombed, |
| 1:47.6 | some of the geopolitical logic or lack of it behind the assault and the question of who pays, |
| 1:53.1 | I'm really pleased that Kevin Harris is here to join us. |
| 1:56.6 | He's one of the foremost experts on Iranian society and political economy, |
| 2:00.8 | and we're going to get his take when our program returns in just a moment. He's one of the foremost experts on Iranian society and political economy. |
| 2:04.1 | And we're going to get his take when our program returns in just a moment. |
... |
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