Sources & Methods

Poor planning, overly ambitious goals, not thinking through the aftermath. These are the parallels that Richard Haass sees between the 2003 U.S. invastion of Iraq and its current air campaign against Iran.

Haass was in charge of planning for the invasion as a top official in the State Department. He was a voice of dissent within the administration. Now he's president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the Home & Away newsletter. He talks to Host Mary Louise Kelly about the Trump administration's foreign policy and national security apparatus and where he sees it falling short on Iran.

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The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran is spilling out across the region. What are the goals? And how does it end?

Host Mary Louise Kelly talks with International Correspondent Aya Batrawy, based in Dubai, and Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman, about the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Six days of war have turned the middle east upside down, and it's still not clear how the U.S. will determine when its objectives have been accomplished.

Recommended Iran reading:

Blackwave by Kim Ghattas
All the Shah’s Men by Stephen Kinzer
Prisoner by Jason Rezaian
Persian Mirrors by Elaine Sciolino

Listener spy novel recommendation: 

Pariah by Dan Fesperman

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President Trump says Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead. 

This comes after Israel and the United States launched missile attacks across Iran targeting the country's top leadership. Iran responded with missile and drone strikes in several countries in the Gulf region.

Host Mary Louise Kelly speaks with NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre and NPR international correspondent Daniel Estrin about what this means for the Iranian regime and what might come next.

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Overnight, the United States and Israel launched military strikes against Iran.

The strikes targeted Iran’s top leaders, Supreme Leader Khamanei and President Masoud Pezeshkian — trying to kill them, according to a person briefed on Israel’s operation who spoke to NPR. Iran has responded by lobbing missiles at Israel and other countries in the region that host U.S. troops.Host Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Greg Myre, NPR national security correspondent, and Daniel Estrin, NPR international correspondent based in Tel Aviv, about what they know and what could come next.

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The seas of the Middle East are bristling with American warships and airpower trained on Iran. What does President Trump have in mind for them?

Host Mary Louise Kelly talks with National Security Correspondent Greg Myre and Pentagon Correspondent Tom Bowman about Trump's aims in nuclear negotiations with Iran and the risks of military action.And four years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a look at the many obstacles to peace and how Ukraine has pioneered a scrappy, improvised way of fighting, built around inexpensive drones.Email the show at [email protected].

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