Episode Details

Iran's four-month war with the US and Israel has entered a new, lower-intensity phase. But is this exhaustion, or Iran's most decisive victory yet? I am joined by Dr. Bikram Singh Gill, lecturer in international relations at Cardiff University, to examine the strategic reversals defining this war. Gill explains how the campaign meant to disarm Iran has instead disarmed US deterrence itself, with Iran now controlling the underlying equation of force in the Gulf through its command of the Strait of Hormuz. We examine why Gulf states like Saudi Arabia keep gambling on Washington even as that alliance stops serving their own capital's interests, and draw the parallel to European elites trapped in the same losing bet. We close on the popular legitimacy underwriting states like Iran and China, and the uprising now shaking India after decades of jobless neoliberal growth. The West has misread these societies before. Professor Gill argues it's doing so again.