Iran Shoots Down US Helicopter - Iran War Update with Richard Miniter and Thomas Small
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What recent event escalated tensions between Iran and the US?
hello everybody and welcome to a very special edition of trigonometry we are here live with francis myself obviously but much more importantly two of our favorite expert guests when it comes to the middle east the war in iran israel lebanon we'll talk about all of that richard minitor investigative journalist based in dc author of numerous bestsellers and Of course, some of our episodes with him, one of our episodes, over a million views. The conversation we had with him and Eamon Dean about this conflict a couple of months back, again, a million views. Thomas Small needs very little introduction. Co-host of the Conflicted podcast with Eamon Dean, again, has been on the show numerous times. All of them have absolutely crushed it because he really does know what he's talking about.
Welcome to you both, gentlemen. Thank you very much. Nice to be here.
Great to be here.
It's great to have you. We wanted to do the thing that Francis and I always like to do, which is go big picture and talk about where we are, what's the situation, why isn't there peace yet, etc. But while we were getting ready to go on air, we just received news that a U.S. Apache helicopter had been shot down, confirmed by President Trump. The pilots have been rescued. Richard, what can you tell us about that and perhaps the impact it's going to have on this conflict before we get into the big picture?
So the shoot down happened last night. The rescue occurred late last night, Washington time. And the president and his people are scrambling to figure out what it means. So there are different factions trying to understand this event. It was apparently a Shahid drone. The question is, was it intentional or not intentional? This is a kind of very Washington question. If it's intentional, it means that this institution called the government of Iran is signaling that it's no longer interested in peace and, in fact, wants to go back to war with the United States. But that's the question one faction is asking. Another faction is asking this question. Is the Iranian government a unified entity? In other words, are there Iranian Revolutionary Guards units that were given orders before the late Ayatollah Khomeini was killed?
that in the event of his departure from this earth, that he would, that they are to do the following. And are they then sort of blindly following the commands of a dead leader? And therefore, because it's a fractured government, they are not able to negotiate because some units are acting independently or independently of the current leadership. There's a third faction, which is, hey, there's an election coming up in November, and Republican voters who are desperately needed for the Trump people to avoid a two-year cycle of investigations, impeachments, and accusations are not likely to turn up if gas prices are high. And so let's wrap up this war however we do it, says the third faction. in order to have some hope of salvaging the midterm elections.
So these are three different questions about three different things, none of which is really about the reality in Iran today. And it may well be what matters most in making peace. And I want to remind you of an Iranian proverb now. The bowl is hotter than the soup. In other words, the interest of Iran in peace, the soup, isn't very high. And that Trump is trying to warm the bowl, right? But it doesn't warm the soup. And it might be because the people in charge in Iran cannot figure out how they make peace and stay in power at the same time. They understand how they stay in power if they had working atomic weapons, because that's the North Korean strategy. They've looked at Ukraine, they've looked at Libya, and they've looked at North Korea and Pakistan, and they've said, well, hmm, turned out better for the Pakistanis and the North Koreans than for the Libyans and the Ukrainians.
We think we'll choose atomic weapons from door number three, please. That option has been denied to them through the US and Israeli efforts and many other reasons.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What recent event escalated tensions between Iran and the US?
0:00–8:23
2
How does the US government interpret the helicopter shootdown by Iran?
8:23–11:51
3
What factions within Iran are influencing their approach to negotiations?
11:51–16:26
4
How does the Iranian regime's history affect its current politics?
16:26–1:10:53
5
What role does the Strait of Hormuz play in the conflict?
1:10:53–1:34:26
Speakers
5 identifiedMore from TRIGGERnometry
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