Hey, fam, it's me, Amara.

Welcome to the Translash podcast, a show where we tell trans stories to save trans lives.

On February 28th of this year, the U.S. and Israel launched a military campaign against Iran,

killing that country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali, Kamani, along with a number of other senior Iranian officials.

In subsequent strikes, between seven nations throughout the Middle East, thousands have been killed and wounded,

with millions displaced. Moreover, wide-ranging global economic impacts of higher fuel prices,

inflation, and possible shortages of critical materials like fertilizer have taken hold.

The reality is that the effects of this conflict, even with a tenuous, announced

ceasefire, have spiraled out of control and could spiral further still. Despite all of this,

there was very little public conversation about Iran before this war, and people don't actually

fully understand how we got here and what it all

means. Because this is such a complex topic, we're going to divide this conversation into two

episodes. Today's episode will focus on understanding more about the tense relationship between

America and Iran, going back to the mid-20th century,

then next week we'll look at this war and Iran's relationship with its neighbors in the region.

Now, I couldn't think of anyone better to give us a clearer, more nuanced understanding of this conflict in the Middle East

than my colleague and

MS now anchor Amen Mohadine, who spent more than a decade as a foreign correspondent covering this

region. Just a program note, at the time of this recording, Iran and the U.S. are in a two-week

truce, but Iran has accused Israel of violating the terms of this

temporary pause with hundreds of attacks on the Hezbollah organization, which is an Iranian ally

based in Israel's neighbor of Lebanon. All of this means that this conflict could reignite

...