Lawfare Daily: The Latest in Iran, with Richard Nephew
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 13 January 2026
⏱️ 54 minutes
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Summary
Iran is once again witnessing large-scale protests, on which the regime is cracking down through mass arrests and deadly force. President Trump has stated that the United States would come to the rescue of Iranians if the regime continues to kill protestors. Meanwhile, Tehran continues to reconstitute its nuclear program, which was damaged during the 12-day war over the summer. President Trump has threatened to eliminate Iran’s nuclear and missile programs if Tehran does not stop rebuilding its capabilities. Iran’s regional standing remains diminished, though its relationships with Russia and China continue even as tensions create limits to cooperation.
On today’s episode, Lawfare Public Service Fellow Ariane Tabatabai sits down with Richard Nephew, Senior Research Scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and former Deputy Special Envoy for Iran, to discuss the latest developments in Iran, take stock of U.S. policy toward Iran during President Trump’s first year back in office, and offer indicators for what to expect next.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Diplomatic deals or military operations may not be as successful in a narrow sense of addressing |
| 0:07.4 | a nuclear issue. |
| 0:08.6 | And this takes me back to the question of what should be the objective of the United States. |
| 0:12.3 | Is this a time where you need to contemplate something much more aggressive in terms of limiting |
| 0:17.8 | this regime's ability to develop those weapons? |
| 0:20.6 | Is that the kind of path that you want to pursue, especially if there are protests ongoing? |
| 0:24.5 | It's the Lawfare podcast. I'm Ariane Tabatabai, public service fellow here at Lawfare, |
| 0:29.2 | with Richard Nephew, senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at |
| 0:33.9 | Columbia University and former Deputy Special En envoy for Iran during the Biden administration. |
| 0:39.3 | I cannot believe the ongoing protest activity is going to suggest to the Russians, you know, |
| 0:44.3 | this is a relationship we need to invest in. |
| 0:46.4 | I think more than anything, if they were already kind of lukewarm, they're going to remain such |
| 0:51.9 | until they see what comes out of this, until they see what it comes out of potential military strikes coming from the U.S. or Israel |
| 0:57.7 | with the Guard of Missile Program, so on and so forth. |
| 1:01.1 | Today, we're talking about Iran and taking stock of the Trump administration's policy toward the country. |
| 1:07.2 | We recorded this podcast on Thursday, January the 8th. |
| 1:11.3 | As we were beginning to record, we learned that the Iranian regime had shut down the internet |
| 1:16.1 | in response to the protests across the country. |
| 1:18.9 | The shutdown has not gone on for days, and the regime has ramped up its crackdown. |
| 1:24.5 | The number of protesters killed and arrested by regime forces have gone up drastically. |
| 1:29.3 | The latest reporting puts those numbers at more than 500 killed and 10,700 arrested. |
| 1:36.8 | These are the numbers as of this morning. This is January 12th, Eastern Time, and they will likely |
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