How America Went Blind in Iran | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS
7/23/20261 hr 39 min
This week we trace four decades of American intelligence failure in Iran, from the 1953 CIA coup against Mossadegh through the 1979 embassy takeover that wiped out our human network overnight. Jonathan Hackett walks us through Stuxnet, the JCPOA, the 2019 rollup of our entire asset network, and why we're now dependent on Israeli intelligence to tell us what's happening underground.
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00:00 - Start
02:04 - Before 1953: the Qajars, the Constitutional Revolution, and Sykes-Picot
09:07 - Why Iranians haven't ruled themselves since Islam arrived
12:42 - Operation Ajax: Mossadegh nationalizes the oil and the CIA moves in
18:02 - Khomeini in exile: tapes, France, and the promises he made
20:38 - The MEK, Jundallah, and the separatist groups nobody agrees with
28:31 - Would removing the regime plunge Iran into civil war?
34:13 - The Shah's Westernization push and the rise of Shia fanaticism
40:16 - 1979: the embassy, the shredded documents, and losing every asset
43:52 - Saddam's invasion is what made the revolution real
46:42 - Backing both sides: the US strategy in the Iran-Iraq war
50:35 - Iran-Contra and Operation Eagle Claw
53:09 - Hezbollah's real origins: Berkeley, Amal, and the Israeli occupation
01:02:38 - A.Q. Khan, Israel's undeclared arsenal, and the 2003 nuclear announcement
01:09:31 - Stuxnet: five countries, a USB drive, and jumping the air gap
01:14:20 - Building the JCPOA and what Trump's withdrawal actually accomplished
01:19:39 - 2019: how the entire US spy network in Iran was rolled up
01:22:50 - Why we went in this time, and the eight men in the room
01:29:19 - No end state: where this leaves us and why carriers can't secure Hormuz
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Clips
Transcript preview
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David Park· Host1:00
Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm here with Jack Murphy and Jonathan Hackett. I would say the two, the two big brains of the group. [laughs] Ivy League grads, or almost Ivy League grad for, uh, for Jon. He's getting there. Um, today's show is gonna be a little bit different than a normal show. Usually, obviously, we do like, you know, what's going on current events-wise, you know, da- you know, week fucking eighteen of the Iran war. I mean, this does have to do with