The bog of war: week five begins
Economist Podcasts
The Economist
4.3 • 5K Ratings
🗓️ 30 March 2026
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Iran conflict is escalating with little prospect of an end in sight. Our correspondent explains why a US ground invasion is likely. In an ongoing history series, we look at how America’s attitude to migrants changed as it got richer. And “Project Hail Mary” is a sci-fi film drawing wide audiences.
Guests and host:
- Gregg Carlstrom, Middle East correspondent
- Annie Crabill, a news editor in New York
- Alexandra Suich Bass, Culture editor
- Rosie Blau, co-host of “The Intelligence”
- Jason Palmer, co-host of “The intelligence”
Topics covered:
- Iran, Houthis, geopolitics, oil
- America, migration, colonialism
- “Project Hail Mary”, sci-fi
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Economist. |
| 0:10.3 | Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. I'm Rosie Bloor. |
| 0:15.1 | And I'm Jason Palmer. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. |
| 0:24.6 | As part of our history series on America at 250, we move on to the next chapter in its growth as a nation. |
| 0:30.6 | Despite being the world's leading industrial power, America started closing its borders to migrants and looking overseas for new opportunities. |
| 0:41.5 | And as more and more cinema seats stay empty, many people think the genre that might fill them back up is science fiction. |
| 0:48.3 | We take a look at Project Hail Mary as one film that's rightly leading the charge in what some are calling the year of sci-fi. |
| 1:15.9 | The War with Iran has entered its fifth week, with little prospect of an end. |
| 1:20.3 | Few think that any kind of talks will lead to a deal. There are suggestions that America might deploy thousands of troops on the ground, |
| 1:25.2 | and in a further sign of escalation over the weekend, |
| 1:28.6 | the Houthis, Yemen's Shia, that's aligned with Iran, launched missiles at southern Israel. |
| 1:36.3 | The longer the war drags on, the greater the consequences for all sides. |
| 1:43.0 | We're getting to a point where each party to this war might start to overplay its hand. |
| 1:49.2 | Greg Kahlstrom is our Middle East correspondent. |
| 1:51.9 | Iran has an opportunity now to end the war on somewhat favorable terms, but it doesn't seem |
| 1:58.1 | interested in doing that. Donald Trump, looking for a sort of victory |
| 2:02.8 | image, might deploy ground troops to Iran, which is going to plunge him into the sort of |
| 2:07.9 | prolonged conflict that he once railed against as a candidate. And Israel, while it's happy to |
| 2:13.9 | keep fighting for now, may end up causing deep damage to its most important |
| 2:18.7 | relationship, the one with the United States. |
| 2:21.6 | And Greg, we've heard a lot over the weekend about the involvement of Houthis. |
| 2:26.1 | Just tell us what's going on there. |
... |
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