The Socialist Program with Brian Becker

More than fourteen hundred people have been killed in Iran, including over two hundred children. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed. Countries across Asia are rationing fuel, canceling thousands of flights, and closing schools to conserve energy. The Pentagon has asked the White House to approve a two hundred billion dollar funding request to Congress. The president told a rally crowd the war was won in the first hour, but today, with the casualty numbers rising, and the number of displaced reaching over a million, there is no plan for when or how this ends. Brian Becker and Layan Fuleihan discuss.

Two weeks ago, the United States and Israel launched a massive bombing campaign against Iran, killing the Supreme Leader and many other political and military senior officials on the very first night and striking thousands of targets across the country. The administration said the war would be over in weeks. Trump said it was won in the first hour. Driven by extreme hubris, Donald Trump and his entire team have made an extreme miscalculation.

Join the The Socialist Program community at http://www.patreon.com/thesocialistprogram to get exclusive content and help keep this show on the air.

Huge oil prices are hitting U.S. residents as Trump and Netanyahu’s war on Iran rages. This is the second time in recent history that Iran has been attacked while in negotiations with the U.S. or Israel, and officials are indicating they’re no longer interested in negotiations that lead nowhere.
Professor Richard Wolff and Nicole Roussell, a producer of the show, discuss the consequences for workers in the United States and globally.
Professor Richard Wolff is an author & co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work. You can find his work at rdwolff.com.

In 1953 the CIA secretly organized a coup to overthrow the democratically elected leader of Iran. This was the CIA's first regime change operation — code-named 'Operation Ajax' — becoming the playbook for later CIA operations. Its consequences are still reverberating around the world.

In this episode we take a deep dive into how Operation Ajax was planned and executed, it's motivations, the political context locally and globally, what happened in Iran after 1953, its impact on US-Iran relations up to today, and more.

We've added many archival audio clips, including first-hand accounts on both sides, sound effects, music, and more.

This is the first episode in our new series on The Socialist Program. In each episode we will unpack a different CIA/Pentagon operation, each which was given its own code-name as Operation Ajax was.

Join the The Socialist Program community at http://www.patreon.com/thesocialistprogram to get access to the next episodes in this series, more exclusive content, and help keep this show on the air.

Credits:
Brian Becker - writer, narrator
Layan Fuleihan - writer, narrator
John Prysner - audio engineer, producer
Emily Brease - archival producer

On Friday the right-wing Supreme Court delivered a stinging blow to Trump, ruling that his unilateral tariffs were unconstitutional. Trump claims he’s going ahead with more tariffs anyway, but economist Richard Wolff explains that they’ve already failed at their central economic premise.
Professor Richard Wolff is an author & co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work. You can find his work at rdwolff.com.
Join the The Socialist Program community at http://www.patreon.com/thesocialistprogram to get exclusive content and help keep this show on the air.