International Horizons is a podcast of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies that brings scholarly expertise to bear on our understanding of international issues. The International Horizons podcast is our latest effort to bring our research and scholarship to a broader public. John Torpey, the host of the podcast and director of the Ralph Bunche Institute, holds conversations with prominent scholars and figures in state-of-the-art international issues in our weekly episodes.
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International Horizons is a podcast of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies that brings scholarly expertise to bear on our understanding of international issues. The International Horizons podcast is our latest effort to bring our research and scholarship to a broader public. John Torpey, the host of the podcast and director of the Ralph Bunche Institute, holds conversations with prominent scholars and figures in state-of-the-art international issues in our weekly episodes.
In this episode of International Horizons, RBI director John Torpey talks with Vali Nasr, Majid Khadduri Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies and former dean at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, about Iran’s dangerous crossroads after its latest clash with Israel and the United States. Nasr argues that Western narratives about Iran as a reckless theocracy miss the calculated grand strategy behind its actions — a strategy rooted in centuries of imperial ambition, deep-seated insecurity, and anti-American resentment. He explains why the Islamic Republic has survived despite public disillusionment and why hopes of regime change are naïve. Nasr warns that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are now more entrenched than ever, as ordinary Iranians begin to see the bomb as their only shield against annihilation. With the U.S. unwilling to invade but also disinclined to negotiate in good faith, Nasr lays out the stark choice Washington faces: a nuclear Iran or another disastrous Middle East war.
Nasr recently published Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History (Princeton University Press), and is also the author of The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat (Penguin 2014), and The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future (W.W. Norton, 2016 [2006]).
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International Horizons
International Horizons is a podcast of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies that brings scholarly expertise to bear on our understanding of international issues. The International Horizons podcast is our latest effort to bring our research and scholarship to a broader public. John Torpey, the host of the podcast and director of the Ralph Bunche Institute, holds conversations with prominent scholars and figures in state-of-the-art international issues in our weekly episodes.
