The Jackpod: Hold the tiger
On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti
WBUR
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2026
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On Point news analyst Jack Beatty on the lack of justification for, and potential consequences of, a U.S. military strike in Iran.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questrum School of Business. |
| 0:07.9 | A recent episode asks, are boardrooms ready for the new geopolitical reality? Stick around until the end of this podcast to preview the episode. |
| 0:18.1 | WBUR Podcasts, Boston. |
| 0:29.9 | I'm Magna Chakra-Bardi, and this is the Jack Pod. |
| 0:35.5 | Where on-point news analyst, Jack Beattie, helps us connect history, |
| 0:38.9 | literature, and politics in a way that brings his unique clarity to the world we live in now. |
| 0:43.9 | Hello there, Jack. |
| 0:45.4 | Hello, Megna. |
| 0:46.4 | We are at episode 109. What's your headline? |
| 0:50.3 | Hold the tiger. |
| 0:51.7 | Hold the tiger. Tell me more. |
| 0:54.4 | Well, George Ball, he was the resident Cassandra in the Johnson State Department, |
| 1:00.5 | he warned LBJ, who was poised on the first step of escalation in Vietnam, |
| 1:05.8 | Ball warned him, quote, |
| 1:07.6 | Once on the tiger's back, we cannot be sure of picking the place to dismount, end |
| 1:15.2 | quote. Well, right now, we're one of those moments where history is caught rhyming. All the signs |
| 1:22.1 | are, we're poised for an attack on Iraq. On Iran. How easy. How easy it is to get these things mixed up. |
| 1:30.5 | Because the echoes are so clear and strong. |
| 1:34.4 | Echoes haunt us. |
| 1:36.6 | And, you know, even a limited strike on Iran could lose a cycle of retaliation |
| 1:42.2 | and counter-retaliation with neither side able to get off |
| 1:46.6 | the tiger of war. Where are we? What's the rationale for an attack on Iran? Well over the weekend, |
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