Hello, Ted Talks Daily listeners. I'm Ted's head of media and curation, Helen Walters,

and today we're bringing you a special conversation on the attack on Iran by the United States and

Israel. I think it is plausible that in very short order, Iran will no longer have direct capacity to threaten other regimes in the region.

But that's very, very different from saying that Iran won't have the capacity to repress their people on the ground.

That is not something that the Americans right now have a military plan for.

I'm talking to Ian Bremer, the president and founder of Eurasia Group and G0 Media.

I do think that the fact that Trump now on a number of issues has absolutely not followed through

on promises are why he is hemorrhaging support.

And he's likely to become much more risk-acceptant as a consequence of that,

which may well play out in other military episodes international.

We recorded this for our series, Ted Explains the World, on Saturday February the 28th, 2026.

Hello, everyone.

Today is Saturday, February the 28th, 2026.

This morning, after weeks of escalating threats, the United States and Israel bombed several parts of Iran,

including the Supreme Leader Ali Khomein's compound in Tehran. Iran responded in kind with missiles launched towards Israel and four Gulf Arab countries

which host U.S. military bases, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE. Now, this is a fast-moving

situation which feels extraordinarily tenuous. So we obviously returned immediately to Eurasia

Group's founder Ian Bremmer to help us make sense of what is happening now and what is to come Ian high.

Helen, good to see you as always.

So, Ian, as I mentioned, the threats have been stacking up for weeks now.

So this escalation isn't exactly a surprise, but tell us why Trump is doing this now.

Well, there are a couple reasons.

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