AI Summary
5 min readIn the opening of his video announcing the war with Iran, Donald Trump referenced the 1979 hostage crisis, calling it one of the regime’s “very first acts” of aggression. But as Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, explains, the story is far older and more tangled. The hostage crisis was itself a reaction to a 1953 CIA-backed coup that toppled Iran’s democratically elected prime minister. That event is barely remembered in America but is taught to every Iranian schoolchild, creating a foundational narrative of victimhood and defiance that has shaped Iranian policy for decades. The war Trump entered, Vaez argues, was launched with almost no plan for what would come after—a pattern of miscalculation that has repeated itself on both sides for nearly half a century.
The Revolution That Wasn’t What It Seemed
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:02) **Introduction to the conflict** - Ezra Klein opens by describing the war with Iran as lacking any coherent plan or assumptions
- 2 (02:57) **Guest introduction** - Ali Vayez of the International Crisis Group joins to provide historical context on US, Israel, and Iran relations
- 3 (03:32) **Iranian Revolution of 1979** - Broad coalition of liberals, leftists, and nationalists topples the Shah with little plan for what follows
- 4 (06:09) **US Embassy hostage crisis** - Students seize the embassy, creating a 444-day rupture that resets US-Iran relations
- 5 (07:43) **1953 coup and long-term resentments** - US-UK overthrow of Mossadegh fuels Iranian narrative of Western interference in self-determination
- 6 (11:43) **End of hostage crisis and recurring patterns** - Hostages released on Reagan's inauguration day; Iran repeatedly empowers hardliners abroad
- 7 (14:00) **Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988)** - Saddam invades with broad regional and US backing; Iran fights alone and survives
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Guests on this episode
Show Notes
The Trump administration miscalculated how Iran would respond to this war. And the United States, Iran and Israel were brought to the brink of war in the first place because of a whole series of misjudgments and miscalculations going back decades.
Ali Vaez is the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group. He was involved in the negotiations that led to the 2015 nuclear deal, and is in fact himself a nuclear scientist. He’s also an author of “How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare.”
In this conversation, Vaez explains how over 47 years the United States, Israel and Iran came to one another as threats, and why so many efforts to thaw relations failed. It’s the briefing on Iran that Trump should have received before he decided to go to war.
Mentioned:
How Sanctions Work by Narges Bajoghli, Vali Nasr, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, and Ali Vaez
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
Book Recommendations:
Persians by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
The Mantle of the Prophet by Roy P. Mottahedeh
Tomorrow Is Yesterday by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
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 Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Aman Sahota. 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 Aman Sahota and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samul
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