The Trump administration miscalculated how Iran would respond to this war. And the United States, Iran and Israel were brought to the brink of war in the first place because of a whole series of misjudgments and miscalculations going back decades.

Ali Vaez is the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group. He was involved in the negotiations that led to the 2015 nuclear deal, and is in fact himself a nuclear scientist. He’s also an author of “How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare.”

In this conversation, Vaez explains how over 47 years the United States, Israel and Iran came to one another as threats, and why so many efforts to thaw relations failed. It’s the briefing on Iran that Trump should have received before he decided to go to war.

Mentioned:

How Sanctions Work by Narges Bajoghli, Vali Nasr, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, and Ali Vaez

Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action

Book Recommendations:

Persians by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

The Mantle of the Prophet by Roy P. Mottahedeh

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Aman Sahota and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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I’m opposed to this war. The Trump administration did not consult the American public or try to persuade Congress before authorizing the strikes on Iran. I don’t think the administration is prepared for what the strikes might unleash.

But I wanted to try to understand President Trump’s decisions from the perspective of somebody much friendlier to his foreign policy. Nadia Schadlow is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and served as a deputy national security adviser during Trump’s first term. She led the drafting and publication of the 2017 National Security Strategy of the United States.

In this conversation, Schadlow gives the conservative case for war with Iran, and for attacking without first building support in Congress or with the public. And I ask her how she squares Trump the candidate, who ran on a promise of not starting new wars, with the Trump of today, who’s deposed two heads of state since the start of 2026, and now says he won’t rule out boots on the ground in Iran. Is there a consistent worldview here? Or did Trump change?

Mentioned:

“National Security Strategy of the United States of America”

War and the Art of Governance by Nadia Schadlow

“The Globalist Delusion” by Nadia Schadlow

“The Great Lie of War” with Ben Rhodes on “The Ezra Klein Show”

Book Recommendations:

America in the World by Robert B. Zoellick

The Mystery of Capital by Hernando De Soto

The Peacemaker by William Inboden

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Last Friday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that he was breaking the Pentagon’s contract with the A.I. company Anthropic and would declare the company a supply chain risk — a designation for companies so dangerous, they can’t exist anywhere in the U.S. military supply chain. What makes this so wild is the military is still using Anthropic’s A.I. system right now. They reportedly used it during the raid to capture Maduro in Venezuela, and are now using it in the war in Iran.

This story raises so many questions: Why does the government think Anthropic is so dangerous? How exactly is the government using A.I. right now? How do they want to use A.I.? And who should ultimately control this powerful and uncertain technology?

Dean Ball is a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation and the author of the newsletter Hyperdimensional. He served as a senior policy adviser on A.I. for the Trump White House and was the primary staff writer of their A.I. action plan. But he’s been furious at the Trump administration for how it has been handling the conflict with Anthropic. So I wanted to have him on the show to explain why.

Mentioned:

“Hyperdimensional" by Dean Ball

“What if Dario Amodei Is Right About A.I.?” The Ezra Klein Show

“Stratechery” by Ben Thompson

Book Recommendations:

Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays by Michael Oakeshott

Empire Of Liberty by Gordon S. Wood

Roll, Jordan, Roll by Eugene D. Genovese

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Two sitting heads of state, eight weeks apart.

On Saturday, February 28, the United States and Israel launched a massive military assault on Iran that resulted in the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with much of his senior command. This came less than two months after the United States military captured Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela, in an overnight raid.

The president seems to believe that he can decapitate these regimes and control their successors without events spinning out of his control. Is he right?

Ben Rhodes is a New York Times Opinion contributing writer and a co-host of “Pod Save the World.” He served as a senior adviser to President Barack Obama and worked on the Iran nuclear deal.

In this conversation, we discuss the ongoing conflict in Iran, how Democrats should respond, and whether Trump’s “head on a pike” approach to foreign policy underestimates the chaos of war.

Mentioned:

“Push from Saudis, Israel helped move Trump to attack Iran” by Michael Birnbaum, John Hudson, Karen DeYoung, Natalie Allison and Souad Mekhennet

“Trump’s Best Foreign Policy? Not Starting Any Wars” by J.D. Vance

Book Recommendations:

From the Ruins of Empire by Pankaj Mishra

The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig

Travelers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Mary Marge Locker, and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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In a couple weeks, the archives of our show will only be available to subscribers. Here’s why that’s happening and what to expect. 

To learn more, go to nytimes.com/podcasts.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Every Tuesday and Friday, Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation about something that matters. How do we address climate change if the political system fails to act? Has the logic of markets infiltrated too many aspects of our lives? What is the future of the Republican Party? What do psychedelics teach us about consciousness? What does sci-fi understand about our present that we miss? Can our food system be just to humans and animals alike?

Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein.

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Rogé Karma and Jeff Geld; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.