I kept reaching for an analytical framework this week and not finding one. That’s what prompted us to bring back Kerry Boyd Anderson, our longtime friend and go-to expert on Iran. Kerry is so good at helping us understand how history and the present collide, and she doesn’t shy away from complexity.

Sarah, Kerry, and I try to work our way through what Israel, the US, and Iran are doing. What are the objectives? What do we know? What don’t we know?

We talk about the Kurds, the risks of regional spillover into Turkey and Europe and as far east as Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the pattern of American military interventions that intend to help but don’t.

There is real fear in this episode — mine, specifically. There’s also a real effort to find a plausible best-case scenario. This conversation helped me, and I hope it helped you, too. -Beth

Topics Discussed

What are the objectives in Iran?
Is regime change likely?
What might happen throughout the Middle East because of this war?
Will this war make the people of Iran better off?

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Episode Resources

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today, we are joined by Kerry Boyd Anderson to help us understand what’s happening in Iran. Kerry is a longtime friend of the show. She’s been with us many times over the years. We trust her experience and her deep understanding of the Middle East and specifically of Iran. She’s currently the membership editor for War on the Rocks. And I feel just a tremendous sense of relief that she was available to talk with us on short notice and really help us try to make sense of what’s happening across the world.

Sarah [00:00:42] We wanted this conversation to be standalone and easily shareable so there won’t be an Outside of Politics conversation this week. If you are hungry for a lighter take on the weekend news, go check out our Spicy Live where we gossiped about both Hillary Clinton’s deposition and Kristi Noem’s hearings before the Senate and the House. Lots there.

Beth [00:01:03] You can find that on Substack. We’ll put all the information in the show notes. Next up, Kerry helps us think about Iran. Kerry Anderson, welcome back to Pantsuit Politics. I am so happy that you’re here. I was thinking about how I am desperate for some kind of analytical framework through which to understand the strikes in Iran. And I tried to explore that a little bit because I knew I would want to rush into it with you. And probably what I should name for everyone is that I think I’m feeling that desperation because I feel kind of afraid. I think I feel more fear about this than I have felt about other actions that I thought were ill-advised or rash or maybe necessary, but scary. This one feels really scary to me. I’m wondering, Sarah and Kerry how you’re feeling just as we get started.

Kerry Anderson [00:02:02] I think that’s valid. I think if we look at, say, the strikes on Iran in June, or we look at the capture of President Maduro from Venezuela, while those were risky foreign policy approaches, the risks were within certain limits. This is actually, as an analyst, is even difficult to put a framework around what are the risks on this. So I think that the uncertainty here is massive.

Sarah [00:02:39] I think there’s this narrative that like, okay, we’re now at war with Iran, but haven’t we been at war with Iran for a long time just under different guises? I was listening to Ben Rhodes, and he was just talking about between the assassination of the general and his first term and the sanctions and the bombing of the nuclear program that we supposedly annihilated, but now maybe not, like, put us in a timeline here before we get to the fallout. Like really what was the realistic relationship between the United States and Iran? And particularly, I think you also have to talk about the orientation of Iran and Israel because clearly this is a joint mission. So how are you thinking about that leading up into the strikes, the most recent strike?

Kerry Anderson [00:03:32] That’s a great question because of course this has been a significant part of the administration’s explanation for why we’ve gone to war. I would say in terms of your question of have we been at war with Iran for a long time, it’s kind of yes and no. Certainly, nothing of this scale. This is an entirely new scale. And we can certainly, of course, had very negative relations with Iran back to 1979 when you had the Iranian Revolution and you had to take over the U.S. Embassy. And we had a failed military attempt under President Carter to pull the hostages out. Yeah, I mean, this goes back quite a long time. We supported Iraq with weapons during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. There was the tanker wars. Certainly during the Iraq war, after the United States invaded Iraq, Iran was supporting a number of the Iraqi Shia militias that were fighting. U.S. Soldiers and certainly help provide some of the materials. Then of course, as you mentioned, the killing in Trump’s first administration of Qasem Soleimani. So on the one hand, yes. On the other hand, the strikes in June was significant because that was the first time the United States has done direct strikes on the Iranian homeland. And now this is really huge because in coordination with Israel-- so I’m going to talk about we, meaning the United States and Israel, because I’m not sure the exact breakdown of who’s hit what. But we’ve killed the Supreme Leader, we’ve killed a number of the senior officials, we’re bombing huge parts of the country, and we’re talking about regime change. So this is an entirely different level than we’ve seen before.

Beth [00:05:21] So if you create a strategy by beginning with the end in mind, we’ve heard a lot of different versions of what the end might look like from administration officials. As we’re recording here today, what’s your best understanding of the end and mind that they have?

Kerry Anderson [00:05:39] That’s a great question. Wish I knew the answer. I think one of the real challenges has been the goals here are not clear and right before the war started on Saturday, February 28th, I was I think posted on X that how-- because people are asking what do you think they’re going to hit and I was like I don’t know what we’re going hit because I don t know what the goal is. Like how do you match your means to your ends when you don’t know what the ends are. So I can hope that that is clearer to people in the administration than it is to the rest of us. But the administration has given multiple, sometimes conflicting and confusing answers for what the end goal is. We’ve had, for example, a total regime change, which we can get into what does that mean? Trump has also a few times said that he wants to do something more along the lines of what we had in Venezuela, where you remove a few officials, but you leave the regime generally intact. And, of course, Israel has its own goals here too, which play a crucial role. We’re really kind of in this together and those are also kind of unclear.

Sarah [00:06:51] Well, I th...

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