Lawfare Daily: How Two Intelligence Community Veterans View the Iran Conflict, with Chip Usher and Aaron Faust
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 27 March 2026
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today's episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sits down with two veterans of the intelligence community to get their take on the ongoing Iran conflict.
Before leaving government last year, Aaron Faust was a senior official in the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), where he had previously served as Division Chief for Iran, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula. William "Chip" Usher, meanwhile, is the Senior Director for Intelligence at the Special Competitiveness Studies Project and a professor of practice at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. He previously spent 32 years with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), much of it focused on the Middle East.
Together, Scott, Aaron, and Chip discuss the national security threats that Iran presents, the challenges that large-scale military operations against Iran were expected to present, and where the Trump administration—and Iran—may take the conflict from here.
For more of Chip's analysis, read his newsletter "Fault Lines" and check out his podcast, "Intel at the Edge.” You can also find Aaron's satirical takes on current affairs on his Substack, Ridiculocracy.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You know, I think we did plan for interceptors, but only up to a certain time frame. |
| 0:07.5 | And we're fast approaching if we haven't already arrived at the time frame when we will start to run out, |
| 0:14.7 | and our allies will start to run out of interceptors of the kinds that can actually stop the Iranian missiles. |
| 0:20.7 | It's the Lawfare podcast. I'm senior editor Scott R. Anderson. Here with you. interceptors of the kinds that can actually stop the Iranian missiles. |
| 0:25.6 | It's the Lawfare podcast. I'm senior editor, Scott R. Anderson, here with Chip Usher, |
| 0:28.8 | the Senior Director for Intelligence at the Special Competitiveness Studies Project and a 32-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Aaron Faust, who was previously |
| 0:33.5 | the division chief for Iran within the State Department's Intelligence and Research Bureau. |
| 0:37.5 | If all we did was agree to a cessation of hostilities tonight, the Iran that we would be left with, yes, seriously degraded, but, you know, certainly more angry and committed to rearming itself, you know, perhaps taking a fresh look at its nascent nuclear program |
| 0:57.3 | than ever before. |
| 0:59.5 | Today, we're talking about the war in Iran, how we got here and where it might be going. |
| 1:04.9 | You can find more of Chip Usher's analysis on his fault lines newsletter via substack, |
| 1:09.1 | and you can find Aaron's satirical take on current affairs at ridiculousocracy.com. |
| 1:14.2 | So, Aaron, I want to start with a little bit of a level set for folks who may not be as deeply |
| 1:21.0 | immersed in the Iran questions and Iran problems that folks who deal with the Middle East policy |
| 1:27.3 | have been dealing |
| 1:27.7 | with for decades. Talk to us a little about what the consensus has been around the real threats |
| 1:35.6 | that Iran does present, or at least challenges Iran presents, to U.S. national security and has for a while, |
| 1:42.2 | and also give us a little bit of sense of what the |
| 1:44.4 | dominant U.S. strategy has been for the last decade or two. |
| 1:49.0 | Sure. Well, I think really you're seeing a lot of the threats that we've all been concerned |
| 1:54.1 | about right now that we've all been concerned about for a very long time. So Iran has always had |
| 1:59.7 | the ability to affect the free flow of oil and |
... |
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