The third Gulf war: one week on
The Intelligence from The Economist
The Economist
4.5 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 6 March 2026
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After a momentous week, our editors reflect on how uncertainty about the goals of the war in Iran will affect its course. Iran’s retaliation has been fierce and wide ranging. How long can Gulf stocks of missile interceptors last? And our obituaries editor looks back at the life of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
Guests and host:
- Edward Carr, Economist deputy editor
- Josie Delap, Middle East editor
- Shashank Joshi, defence editor
- Ann Wroe, obituaries editor
- Rosie Blau, host of “The Intelligence”
Topics covered:
- Iran, Donald Trump, third Gulf war, war goals
- Interceptor missiles, military strategy
- Ali Khamenei
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Economist |
| 0:02.0 | Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. |
| 0:13.0 | I'm your host Rosie Bloor. |
| 0:16.0 | Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. |
| 0:32.1 | Today and for the second time this week, we're devoting the whole show to the conflict in the Middle East. Later in the show, we'll speak to defence editor Shashank Joshi about how long Gulf states can |
| 0:39.1 | keep up the defense of their countries. And as it's Friday, our obituary's editor will look back |
| 0:44.8 | at the complicated life of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khomeini, who was killed in the first |
| 0:51.4 | hours of this conflict. But first, |
| 0:57.0 | after a week pounding Iran from the air, |
| 1:00.0 | there's no sign that America and Israel are letting up. |
| 1:04.0 | Overnight, America's Secretary of War, Pete Hegsef, |
| 1:07.0 | announced what he referred to as a dramatic surge coming in firepower. |
| 1:13.0 | Iran is hoping that we cannot sustain this, which is a really bad miscalculation. |
| 1:21.0 | Donald Trump has repeated calls for the regime to lay down its weapons and for Iranians to take |
| 1:26.6 | over their country. |
| 1:28.3 | I'm joined by two of the paper's editors to look back at a momentous week. |
| 1:34.1 | Josie DeLap is our Middle East editor. |
| 1:36.4 | Ed Carr is the deputy editor of The Economist. |
| 1:39.0 | Hello to you both. |
| 1:39.9 | Good morning, Rosie. |
| 1:41.0 | Hi, Rosie. |
| 1:42.4 | Ed, Josie, we're going to come on to this heck of a week in a minute. |
... |
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