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Iran's War for a New Middle East Order (Robert Wright & Hooman Majd)
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Iran's War for a New Middle East Order (Robert Wright & Hooman Majd)

This episode includes an Overtime segment that’s available to paid subscribers. If you’re not a paid subscriber, we of course encourage you to become one. If you are a paid subscriber, you can access the complete conversation either via the audio and video on this post or by setting up the paid-subscriber podcast feed, which includes all exclusive audio content. To set that up, simply grab the RSS feed from this page (by first clicking the “...” icon on the audio player) and paste it into your favorite podcast app.

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0:00 Teaser
2:10 How we got here
10:38 Understanding Iran’s strategy and goals
15:58 Turkey, Europe, and the Gulf States
18:58 Will the Iranian regime survive?
20:44 The specious leadership of Reza Pahlavi
26:43 The many missed opportunities for US-Iran entente
39:25 Heading to Overtime

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Hooman Majd (Minister Without Portfolio, The Ayatollahs' Democracy). Recorded March 11, 2026.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Hooman's most recent book, Minister Without Portfolio: https://www.zebooks.com/books/minister-without-portfolio

Overtime titles:

How US-Israeli strikes made a Supreme Leader of Mojtaba Khamenei.
Domestic discontent within Iran.
How long can this war last?
How much pain are Israelis feeling?
What pressure would Trump respond to?

Overtime video:

This post is for paid subscribers