Episode Details

The Cold War ended. The CIA's war with Iran did not.

From the 1990s dual containment strategy through the Stuxnet cyberattack, the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, and the drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, Episode 4 of the CIA and Iran Bonus Series covers the three decades of covert action, failed diplomacy, and escalating shadow warfare that made Operation Epic Fury almost inevitable.

This episode covers how a designated foreign terrorist organisation became a CIA intelligence asset and helped expose Iran's secret nuclear facilities at Natanz and Arak. It covers the Olympic Games programme — the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever deployed against a state, and the unintended lesson it handed Iran about asymmetric warfare. It covers the assassination campaign that killed five nuclear scientists and may have hardened Iranian resolve more than it slowed the programme. And it covers the collapse of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran's subsequent sprint toward weapons-grade enrichment, and the intelligence shift — from capability to timeline — that drove the strategic urgency behind Operation Epic Fury.

It also asks the question that runs through all four episodes of this series: did seventy years of American covert action against Iran prevent the confrontation, or help create it?

Epic Fury is a daily narrative podcast covering the US-Iran conflict of 2026. This five-part bonus series traces the CIA's history with Iran from the 1953 coup to the bombs falling today.

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