The Great Lie of War

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

News, Government, Society & Culture

4.3 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2026

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Two sitting heads of state, eight weeks apart. On Saturday, February 28, the United States and Israel launched a massive military assault on Iran that resulted in the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with much of his senior command. This came less than two months after the United States military captured Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela, in an overnight raid. The president seems to believe that he can decapitate these regimes and control their successors without events spinning out of his control. Is he right? Ben Rhodes is a New York Times Opinion contributing writer and a co-host of “Pod Save the World.” He served as a senior adviser to President Barack Obama and worked on the Iran nuclear deal. In this conversation, we discuss the ongoing conflict in Iran, how Democrats should respond, and whether Trump’s “head on a pike” approach to foreign policy underestimates the chaos of war. Mentioned: “Push from Saudis, Israel helped move Trump to attack Iran” by Michael Birnbaum, John Hudson, Karen DeYoung, Natalie Allison and Souad Mekhennet “Trump’s Best Foreign Policy? Not Starting Any Wars” by J.D. Vance Book Recommendations: From the Ruins of Empire by Pankaj Mishra The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig Travelers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Mary Marge Locker, and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The Over the weekend, the United States and Israel launched a massive military assault on Iran.
0:36.8	With an hour's Aitola Ali Khomeini was dead,
0:38.8	along with much of his senior command. As I record this on Monday, March 2nd, the Iranian Red Crescent,
0:44.3	says over 550 people have been killed in the bombings. We know of at least six American service
0:50.0	members who have been killed. There will likely be more as the war rages on. There appears
0:55.5	to have been a girl's school that was bombed, the pictures from that. The grief of the parents
0:59.7	is it's almost unbearable to look at. I just think it's so important to say it's not all geopolitics.
1:06.4	These are people, civilians, their lives, their homes, their children. The attack on Iran came less than two
1:12.7	months after the United States military captured Nicholas Maduro, the president of Venezuela,
1:17.5	in an overnight raid on his compound in Caracas. America has deposed two sitting heads of
1:22.6	state eight weeks apart. I have seen a lot of commentary accusing Donald Trump of hypocrisy.
1:29.2	After all, he ran against wars of regime change, and now he is changing regimes left and right.
1:34.1	We believe that the job of the United States military is not to wage endless regime change wars around the globe, senseless war.
1:48.0	The job of the United States military is to defend America from attack and invasion here at home. But I think this is not quite a policy of regime
1:54.4	change. There's not American invading Iraq or Afghanistan and restructuring the government
1:58.9	ourselves. Maduro's regime was left intact,
2:02.3	aside from him. In an interview with the Times, Trump said that, quote, what we did in Venezuela,
2:07.4	I think, is the perfect, the perfect scenario. He said, everybody's kept their job except for two people.
2:15.0	Trump has called for the Iranian people to rise up against her government,
2:18.5	but he's also said he intends to resume talks with the existing Iranian regime. He said he had a few
2:23.5	choices for who might lead Iran next, but they appeared have been killed in the initial bombings.
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