TRIGGERnometry
The Best Iran War Breakdown You'll See on the Internet with Aimen Dean & Richard Miniter
02 Mar 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello, everybody, and a very warm welcome to our very special live update on the situation in Iran. We are super excited, if it's an appropriate word, to bring this to you because we have literally two of the very best guests in the world to discuss this.
We have the amazing American investigative journalist, repeated former guest of Trigonometry, of course, Richard Miniter, who's written a number of bestsellers, including about terrorism, losing bin Laden, mastermind, and leading from behind. And in addition to that, he's based in Washington, D.C., from which he can bring us all the inside scoops.
And in addition to that, we, of course, have Eamon Dean, another former guest of the show, who is a former Al-Qaeda member, became an MI6 double agent, and he is now the co-host of the Conflicted podcast with Thomas Small, another of our former guests, which covers the various conflicts in the Middle East.
And he's coming to us live from Dubai, where he's literally got fighter jets zooming past him, behind him. So welcome to you both, gentlemen. Thank you so much for joining us. We really, first and foremost, just want to find out, Richard, tell us first and first of all, what has happened in the last two days?
Well, it is the largest series of air sorties that Israel has ever conducted and one of the largest in U.S. history as well. So we're looking at, in the last 48 hours, something approaching 2,000 separate sorties, looking at Israel and the United States combined. This air operation is one of the largest in human history. The number of targets on the ground destroyed.
They're still doing battle damage assessments, but is immense. It is interesting what they're not striking. They're not striking water, power and other things for the most part, except where those power facilities enable launching of long range missiles. Yeah.
uh the most interesting thing to have happened which suggests that this will be a much longer conflict than necessary then might be strictly necessary if you think about it in terms of the 12-day war that was waged earlier this uh late last year or you look at um the gulf war for example the shock and awe campaign of the gulf war is that the ayatollah hamani before he died apparently issued standing orders to individual military units
allowing them to act on their own. Iran's foreign minister, in complaining on state-run broadcasts about the attack on Oman, said, we have no control over those units. They're functioning on standing orders. They didn't mean to attack Oman, which has served as a vital intermediary between the Europeans and the Americans on the one hand and Iran on the other.
long seen as a kind of Switzerland of the Gulf region, for them to be attacked indicates that there's no longer centralized command and control over the military. They're deciding on their own targets and they're in a use it or lose it situation. In other words, if they do not use their rockets and missiles now, their drones now, they may not exist 24, 48 hours from now.
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Chapter 2: What recent events have escalated the Middle East crisis?
And so from 2005 onward, so 20 years, they accelerated their nuclear weapon program. But then of course they were under far more scrutiny than North Korea for all the obvious reasons because of the fact that they have
proxies across the region, including Hezbollah, and then they built the Iraqi militias after the US invasion of Iraq, and then they built the Houthi militia starting from, some people say from 2009, but I do believe it started really as early as 1994 in Yemen. In addition to that, of course, they supported Hamas since 2009 onwards.
In my opinion, all of these activities put so much scrutiny on their nuclear program and the fear that if they become a nuclear armed state, and since they are the largest terror sponsor state in the region and across the world, then that would make it extremely difficult to counter their expansionist ambitions.
I mean, after all, the dear leader of North Korea, whether Kim Jong-un or his father or grandfather, never had any proxy militias or any expansionist ambitions, you know, taking over Japan or establishing a militias in the Philippines. I mean, basically, like, you know, they were contained. The problem with Iran...
Chapter 3: How significant are the recent air sorties conducted by Israel?
given the fact that it's 1.7 million square kilometers, it is a 92 million population, and they have an ideological flavor to their constitution that makes it imperative that they export the revolution to other states under the ideology of the Shia Muslim faith, which believe in eschatology and the return of a savior, a messiah figure, a Mahdi,
All of these meant that they will use the Shia minorities of the region as a Trojan horse in order to undermine other governments. And so one way or another, a clash was inevitable, especially with Israel and of course with Israel's most important ally, the United States. So what happened on February 28 was the inevitable outcome
of decades that was of policies, accumulated policies and accumulated strategic milestones that led to that moment. And Ayman, that being the case, what role did October the 7th play in this? Was it a catalyst or did it make the inevitable even more inevitable?
It did really make the inevitable more inevitable, because if this is what one of the smallest, least supported proxies of Iran could do, and that's from a space of 340 square kilometers, which is the Gaza Strip, if Iran was so reckless that they would send Hamas and the entirety of the population of Gaza on a suicide mission, what would they do with Hezbollah in Lebanon later?
What would they do? And of course, remember that during October 7, the Assad regime was still there in power, and they could have also stormed from the Golan Heights. So at the end of the day, they realized that
you know what, we have tolerated a state sponsor of terror and the existence of the cancerous phenomenon of the heavily armed and numerous non-state actors who could threaten nation states across the region and wreak havoc across the region. And so there was that moment, that realization that we can no longer
no longer whatsoever tolerate the presence of non-state actors supported by this ideologically driven, eschatological, high on eschatology, I would say, high on prophecies of a savior's regime in order to undermine the nation states across the region, not only Israel, but also Saudi Arabia. It suffered a lot at the hands of the Houthis in Yemen.
as well as Bahrain, which suffered instability, and the civil war in Syria and Yemen, which combined killed 2 million people and displaced 25 million others.
Many people don't understand that the legacy of Iran in the region is extremely bloody, unlike the unfortunately leftist, rosy vision of Iran, which present them as freedom fighters or oppressed minority, and therefore, I mean, we need to treat them with velvet gloves. And Ayman, before we move over to Richard, has there been broadly support from the Arab nations for this war?
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Chapter 4: What does the Iranian leadership's decentralized command mean for the conflict?
They just simply want an Iran that leaves its neighbors alone. If there can be some rebuilding projects that benefit American and European companies, fine. But the most important element here, which has not been reported, is the CIA has given a no-kill list to the Israelis, a group ā we don't know who's on that list, but five to ten names, maybe more ā of people they're not allowed to target.
That indicates to me, and this is just my private interpretation, that the CIA already has someone in mind from the power structure that would take over. That is not a regime change. That is a pruning and a moderation of the current regime.
Um, now events on the street may make that CIA change impossible, but the CIA tends to like continuations based on variations rather than wholesale change because wholesale change is impossible to predict the outcome. So let's look at Iran for a moment, right? So you have, depending on which census numbers you believe 91, 93 million people
A large majority report that they are Shia Muslims, but a very different persuasions. Outside of that, who are native Persians, you have a lot of minorities, Azeris, Azerbaijanis, a lot of Kurds, other ethnic groups as well, a growing number of Christians, a growing number of Zoroastrians.
We don't have good numbers on any of this because to report religious conversion is to invite punishment and death under the old regime. But these people have very different ideas about what they'd like to see take over. Regarding Pahlavi, who I've met, but it's been a few years, who is a very urbane, educated, liberal-minded man. The Israelis are entirely enamored of him.
The Trump White House appears to actively dislike him as treacherous, double-sided, not understanding that He has to unite factions and make lots of side deals, which means that at different times and different places, he will say different things. This is something that they feel is not businesslike. And they find him as frustrating to deal with as Zelensky, maybe more so.
The Arabs have also, the Arab governments of the Gulf have been alienated by Pala V when he demanded large sums of money and including payments to his Swiss bank accounts without a lot of accountability or a plan. So there are, and then the Europeans, aside from the French, also seem a little bit cool to Pala V. So I think the prediction market of 25%, Maybe generous.
He doesn't have an outside supporter who seems to like him. On the other hand, the younger people, those under 25, which is a majority of the population in Iran, do seem to like him. Remember, these people were not alive when the last Shah was ruling their country. They don't have a nostalgic view, they have an idealistic view. He may be able to summon them.
If he has a large swell of popular support, it may not matter what dreams the CIA has concocted in its quiet cubicles. This is very much a jump ball. The Trump people are also looking at political reality in the United States. Somewhere between a quarter and a third of Americans surveyed are in favor of this bombing campaign.
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Chapter 5: How has Iran's military strategy evolved over the years?
These are the absolute worst people to have atomic bombs, people who actually want to use them. Other more normal countries that have atomic bombs use them in a different way. They use them by threatening to use them and therefore never using them. That is the real power of an atomic bomb. We could do this. So instead, make a deal with us.
That is why, for example, the West has not fully backed Ukraine in the Biden years. They were afraid of Russia launching atomic attacks. Also, the Iranians have studied the Libyans, Ukrainians, and the South Africans. Those are the only three powers that have were declared to have public and believably had atomic weapons. Other nations claim to have atomic weapons that didn't. Right.
But of those that we absolutely know for certain had atomic weapons and gave them up. How did the rulers of those countries turn out? Well, the Iranian perspective, the South African, the white South African government lost power. You could argue that was a good outcome or a bad outcome, but that's the result.
The Libyans gave up their weapons that they seem to have, including chemical and biological weapons as well. And where's Qaddafi now? He died an ignominious death on the side of the road, and his country is beset by civil war. And of course, we know what happened in Ukraine after its 1994 treaty to give up the atomic weapons that the Soviets had left behind in that country.
So they said, one, we need to have atomic weapons, and two, we need to never give them up. The North Koreans have learned the same lesson about not giving up weapons, and they will not give up easily. But they do not have a religious reason to bring about the end of the world. So if you are looking at this, so what is Trump playing at? Ending a threat to mankind.
from a regime that has shown great willingness to kill millions of its own people, if we add the Iran-Iraq war, these various bombings, the starvation that has occurred in many of the more distant provinces, the malnourishment that has accrued in others, and then the massive terrorist attacks.
Also greatly overlooked is another thing, which is Putin's letter following the death of Ayatollah Khamenei, right? He called it a cynical murder by the US. But read the rest of his remarks. He clearly saw Iran as an ally. Iran wasn't always the world's largest sponsor of terrorism, state sponsor. The USSR was. Terrorism is not a Muslim invention. It is a Russian invention.
It is the Novemberists of the 1830s, the anarchists of the 1860s in Russia. It becomes a tool of the czar in the 1890s using the Armenians against the Turks, which ultimately led to the genocide carried out by the Turks. But the Turks had a long line of atrocities against themselves to point to in justification. I'm not saying it makes it right. I'm just describing the history.
And then under the Soviets, terrorism becomes a key foreign policy tool. In the Middle East, in Europe, look at the Red Army faction, the Baider-Meinhof guys, look at South America, and look at the weathermen in the United States and others, right? They clearly think they can amplify their power through proxy forces. And so the Iranians fully absorbed these Russian lessons.
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Chapter 6: What role did the October 7th events play in the current crisis?
That is simply not tolerated by a large number of Americans. And so Trump's ability to end the war, his vaunted off-ramp, may politically disappear if the terror attacks increase in number or in lethality. That is a much bigger gamble. And there might be political risk in stopping the war before the American people feel that security and safety has been returned.
And if these terror attacks, if they are directed by Iran, and if they continue, two big ifs, then nothing less than complete eradication of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard will be the desired outcome. So this is a mouse calculation by the Iranians of an enormous amount.
Well, it sounds like this is going to potentially run and run and really will be a thing that could have a huge impact on geopolitics, on American politics, on the Trump presidency. And we've got five minutes left. And I want to touch on geopolitics before I do. I think our audience would have been enjoying this so far.
And I just want to remind them, Eamon Dean, the Conflicted podcast, they can go and listen and check that out. And of course, Richard, with you, Losing Bin Laden, Mastermind, Leading from Behind and a whole bunch of other very successful books that you've written about issues that really very closely to do with this. So I hope people go and check both of your work out after this.
But the final issue that I think we should tackle before we wrap up is the geopolitics of it. We recorded an interview with Canadian opposition leader Pierre Polyab this morning with Francis. And his view was the U.S. is effectively engaging in what you might ā he didn't use the term proxy war, but he did feel that dealing with Iran in this way is a direct ā
anti-Chinese dominance move, anti-Russian dominance move. Eamon, you're shaking your head. Richard, maybe just briefly, very briefly, a minute and a half each on the geopolitics of this. Is this about Russia and China? Is this just about the Middle East? And what is likely to be the geopolitical impact of all of this? You want me to go first? Yeah, please. 90 seconds, Eamon. 90 seconds. Okay.
Imagine you're on the BBC, mate. You've got 90 seconds and I'll interrupt you seven times. No problem at all. I'm used to it. Well, look here. First of all, we have to understand that the Iranian regime established proxies, established terror cells all across the world, with Hezbollah, of course, basically in places from Latin America, West Africa, the United States, from Dearborn, Michigan.
all the way to Romania and Eastern Europe, all the way to Mauritius where they have their banking empire. So at the end of the day, it's not about China or Russia. It's about the fact that Iran itself is a gigantic beast of terror networks, money laundering networks, worth about 74 billion dollars a year.
You are talking about a radicalization movement that is trying to subvert Islam and the Islamic nations. You have a movement that is actually within the IRGC that's trying to swallow their neighbors, which could upset, especially when their neighbors And with Iran together, they control about 60% of the world's oil reserves, 40% of the world's natural gas reserves.
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