This interview was originally published on May 19, 2023. We are republishing it as the war in Iran continues to escalate.

Historian, Assal Rad, explores identity formation in modern Iran, both under the Pahlavi dynasty as well as after the 1979 Revolution under the Islamic Republic. Her book “State of Resistance: Politics, Culture, and Identity in Modern Iran” examines top-down and bottom-up manifestations of national identity as narrated by state structures and popular culture, respectively. Her fascinating analysis is based on a historical assessment of how modern state-building in Iran inculcated a sense of national belonging in the population, as well as on interviews with people in Tehran and examples taken from popular music and film. Can national identity play a positive role in liberation struggles?

Miloud Chennoufi, professor of International Relations at the Royal Military College of Canada, tells host Barry Stevens that the rapidly escalating war on Iran is not about democracy or self-defense, but a dangerous and illegal conflict driven by Israel, which has long sought to reshape the Middle East while avoiding a resolution of the Palestinian question. He claims the United States has been drawn into a war it did not need to fight, launched despite ongoing diplomacy and in the absence of any imminent threat. Far from bringing freedom, Chennoufi warns, such violence is more likely to produce shattered states and prolonged chaos. He insists that non-violent political solutions are not just morally preferable but strategically smarter—offering the only real path away from endless violence and toward an elusive peace.

Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), joins Barry Stevens to discuss the alarming wave of complaints from U.S. military personnel. Over 200 service members from 50 installations have reported that commanders in their chain of command are framing the war in Iran as part of God\'s divine plan to bring about the Battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming. Weinstein describes how Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth holds monthly Christian Nationalist prayer services in the Pentagon\'s largest auditorium during the duty day, and how this top-down signaling is emboldening commanders to push religious ideology on their subordinates. Weinstein also confirms that some of the Christian Nationalists within the military are in positions involving nuclear weapons.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson — former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell at the State Department and Joint Chiefs — joins Paul Jay and gives his unfiltered assessment of the U.S. war on Iran. Wilkerson argues the conflict is unconstitutional, unwinnable, and strategically catastrophic. Topics include: Iran\'s military resilience and long-term strategy, Israel\'s nuclear threats, the depletion of U.S. and Israeli air defense munitions, China\'s push to replace the dollar with the renminbi, the collapse of American alliances worldwide, the threat to the 2026 midterm elections, and whether impeachment proceedings against Trump are inevitable.

Trump’s State of the Union and Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference reveal a sweeping — and deeply troubling — vision for American foreign policy. Historian Gerald Horne (University of Houston) and journalist Jonathan Katz (The Gangsters of Capitalism) join Paul Jay to break it down.

What emerges is less a foreign policy than a neo-colonial project: regime change in Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba; a reordering of Europe under American dominance; and an ideology rooted in Christian civilization, white supremacy, and the Nazi theorist Carl Schmitt’s concept of Grossraum — the world divided into spheres where great powers do as they please.

Katz decodes the fascist dog whistles embedded in Trump’s speech — including a number that traces directly to Nazi message boards — while Horne connects Rubio’s Munich address to a broader rollback of the anti-colonial gains of the post-WWII era and the civil rights movement at home.

Is this the return of unapologetic imperialism — a neocon project stripped of any pretense of democracy and freedom? And what does Trump’s self-styled role as “king of the world” through the so-called Board of Peace mean for the United Nations and global governance?

The Epstein files are naming names — CEOs, politicians, a current and former president. This is the stratum of people making decisions about nuclear weapons in an uncontrolled arms race with no arms limitation treaties, no diplomatic channels, and AI now integrated into nuclear command systems.

Paul Jay talks with Matt Korda of the Federation of American Scientists about where the U.S. nuclear modernization program actually stands — the Sentinel ICBM, hundreds of billions in cost overruns, the Golden Dome fantasy, and a launch-on-warning doctrine that even its defenders can’t rationally explain.

The logic behind ICBMs collapses under scrutiny. The Golden Dome can’t work. The real objective, as with every arms race boondoggle from SAGE to SDI, is the money. As Paul puts it, “It’s not about the dome, it’s about the gold.”

Meanwhile, Russia and China aren’t talking to Washington. The arms control architecture is gone. And the media is barely covering any of it.

We need an anti-nuclear movement like the one that existed in the early 1980s. Midterms and a presidential election are coming. Make this an issue.

Matt Korda is a senior researcher at the Federation of American Scientists.