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Radio War Nerd EP #626 — Iran Policy Failures, feat. Sina Toosi (Patreon)

Published:
2026-08-01 15:02:47
Imported:
2026-08
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Guest: Sina ToosiRecorded: July 30, 2026

Sina Toosi joins RWN to discuss evolving IRI policy on the war and the long history of US policy failures towards Iran.

Check out Sina's newsletter Dissident Foreign Policy. Follow Sina on Twitter.

Further reading:-"America’s Iran Failure Is Bigger Than Trump", The Nation-"Beyond Maximalism: Reimagining U.S. Strategy Toward Iran Through Systems Thinking", Center for International Policy

*BREAKING: John's new essay collection, To The Crows, is now for sale! We'll be making the ebook version available to subscribers.

Total time: 1:03:17Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

*

Buy John Dolan's book, They Should Have Been Hanged: War Nerd Essays on the U.S. Civil War

Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio

Files

Comments

DeadPrince

I’m reading the War Nerd Illiad, its fantastic. I read a dusty poetic version in college and appreciated some parts, but never felt captivated by the story as I do now. Thank you!

Cory

So true. I couldn't put it down and read it in one sitting !

CR

I can't even bother respecting Iran. The U.S. is the ultimate bad-faith actor that will always break any deals so long as the consequences of acting in bad faith are less than the pain of following the law and agreements. And Trump is the ultimate player of this game and his entire life has been pushing this very fucking line. THat's why Americans love him. If Iran cannot or will not treat that as the underlying nature of the U.S. and anything it does, along with the Blob being ideologically willing to bear any cost because this is about revenge, then fuck Iran. We will keep teaching you this listen, old man.

William

John’s travels is the slowest raiders of the lost ark travel montage ever

Peter Z

It's hard to fight a bully, but they're fighting

ben s

Would be interested to hear a similar interview that focuses on oil in particular. It’s historic significance, what role it had in starting this war (if any), and how this war has affected it (concretely in terms of the ability to drill and refine it, and also future prospects)

JoR

I haven’t listened to the episode yet so sorry if you’re referencing something. But what would you want Iran to do differently? Post 2/28 they are , very clearly, not taking any “deal” at face value. That’s how the “hostilities” started again, because we were skirting the deal. What should their end game be? Get 5-10 nuclear icbms and murder/suicide a few major American cities? lol.

Norman

Off topic but I'd really love to hear your thoughts on what's happening in Ceuta, seems like Morocco is basically doing another Green March, with the full backing of US and Israel. John's essay on the original Green March was brilliant, so some perspective on this would be appreciated

showlistener

After the 12-day war Joshua Landis made an appearance on the pod, and if memory serves his view was that Iran responded weakly out of weakness. It now looks like everyone including him underestimated Iran's capabilities, and it now looks like Iran's cautious response last summer was a mistake because it only invited more aggression.

a clash of purple

Jeez, chill out, CR. You're not obligated to respect Iran. There doesn't have to be a good guy in a war. The Iranian regime are a bunch of assholes. It doesn't make the American empire any less evil or wrong.

a clash of purple

Iran has constituents too. I'm sure the Iranian people generally want their government to de-escalate, even if it's not necessarily the most coldly rational move. I think this time around, the mass assassinations combined with the triple-tap strike on the girls' school gave Iran a lot more freedom to operate by swinging public sentiment in favor of resistance at all costs. Also, the decapitation of leadership caused a disconnect between the civilian government and the IRGC. Because they have set things up such that the military can continue to function even after senior leadership is wiped out, it necessarily means that they operate without oversight or direction from the government, at least temporarily. This is why the Americans complain sometimes that they don't know who to negotiate with - it takes time for the normal chain of command to be reconstructed, and in the meantime IRGC commanders carry out contingency plans made in advance without input from generals or the Ayatollah. So when the Americans say "We want you to stop firing on ships in the Strait of Hormuz," for example, their Iranian counterparts don't actually have a way of making that happen, whether they want to or not.

a clash of purple

This is all a case study in how Trump's approach ("that retarded ape in the White House," as Norm Finkelstein recently called him during an interview with Hasan Piker) to dealing with the Iranian regime is ultimately not just futile, but counterproductive. All he's accomplishing is murdering innocent people and making the U.S. position in the region weaker than ever. I mean, it apparently never even occured to them to ensure Turkey was on-board with the plan. One of the roles that Iran plays in the Middle East, whether the Iranians like it or not, is as a buffer between Israeli and Turkish ambitions to dominate the region. Weakening Iran means increasing the likelihood of conflict between Israel and Turkey. Turkey and Iran are rivals, but they do have some things in common - they both want to keep a lid on the Kurds, for example, and both of them oppose the occupation of Palestine (at least rhetorically). They'll never be friends, but Turkey has already been quietly providing some support to Iran in this war. They will certainly never let the Iranian regime collapse, because that means Iranian Kurds might be emboldened. So this whole war is monumentally stupid on multiple levels. What's going to happen as Israel and Turkey become more openly hostile to each other, now that Iran is weaker? I don't think the Blob knows or cares, yet. But things are only going to get uglier as time goes on.

showlistener

I mostly agree with the first part: the 12-day war response may have been muted in part because there was little support for it from the Iranian public, and just like in every other country foreign policy decisions are made with the domestic audience in mind (maybe except for the US) I disagree on the second part for two reasons: The American side, and especially the Trump regime, has been unable to negotiate in good faith for 10 years. I don't think the disconnect between the civilian leadership and the IRGC has caused an undue amount of confusion or lack of cohesion when it comes to negotiations. The Iranians have been able to maintain escalation discipline despite the fact that they have moved to this mosaic-style decentralized command structure. It's really impressive. *edit. In response to the last part there, the Iranians started firing on ships again because the US violated the terms of the MOU. That was not a decision that was made on a whim by a random, isolated IRGC commander

JoR

Would the blob really be hurt by open Turkish and Israeli hostilities? It’s a good question. If it got bad enough that the us had to take a side, maybe. But if the different parts of the empire can support one side or another, I think they’d “get over it “. And yeah I agree trumps plan is no plan, but it’s more than just him. This is the war the entire American political and military establishment has needed for almost 50 years. I don’t think anyone really cares about the long term issues. The only thing stopping the other regimes was the immediate consequences

Bryan Nicholson

Sober and clear explanation of IRI’s strategy during this war, as well as the state’s nuclear brief. Thx!

Jason Thompson

Seconded! How & why did Morocco voluntarily hand Spanish conservatives this extreme stereotypical “Camp of the Saints” anti-immigrant-paranoia imagery of 50,000 people walking into a country of 80,000? I get that Morocco wants Ceuta back but who volunteers for this

Jason Thompson

Catching my own biases & double standards: of course I’d love it if this mass-mobilization strategy had worked in the 2018 march on the wall in Gaza

Charles Allen

I’m new to the feed is there anyway to get the private RSS feed in the apple Podcasts app

Jesse Brukman

Have you guys done an episode on the Suez Crisis? Good call out by the guest about the obvious parallels. I'd love a deep dive

DeadPrince

Love when you find a book that feels like you’ve been waiting to read it your whole life.

radiowarnerd

We talk about it in ep 337 (Turkish Invasion of Cyprus) and ep 492 (The first time US tried reshaping the Middle East). But you're right, a full episode is probably due. The analogy to today works and doesn't work.