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Bombing Iran Won’t Help the Protesters

Annelle Sheline on Trump’s embrace of chaos in the Middle East.

Jeet Heer

January 16, 2026

Donald Trump speaks to the press upon returning to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.(Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images)

The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

The Time of Monsters podcast features Nation national-affairs correspondent Jeet Heer’s signature blend of political culture and cultural politics. Each week, he’ll host in-depth conversations with urgent voices on the most pressing issues of our time.

Bombing Iran Won’t Help the Protestors w/ Annelle Sheline
byThe Nation Company LLC

Iran is facing upheavals at home and abroad. For more than two decades, the Islamic republic

has faced waves of protests from citizens demanding a more democratic society. Over the past

two weeks, these protests have erupted with a new ferocity and are being met with violent

repression. Meanwhile, the Israeli government is pushing the United States to renew bombing

Iran, a military objective now being given the guise of a humanitarian mission. To discuss the

turmoil in Iran and place it in the larger context of regional instability and competing visions of

the future of the Middle East, I spoke with Annelle Sheline, a research fellow at The Quincy

Institute who studies the region.

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Iran is facing upheavals at home and abroad. For more than two decades, the Islamic Republic has faced waves of protests from citizens demanding a more democratic society. Over the past two weeks, these protests have erupted with a new ferocity and are being met with violent repression. Meanwhile, the Israeli government is pushing the United States to resume bombing Iran, a military objective now being given the guise of a humanitarian mission. To discuss the turmoil in Iran and place it in the larger context of regional instability and competing visions of the future of the Middle East, I spoke with Annelle Sheline, a research fellow at The Quincy Institute who studies the region.

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The Imperial Presidency and the Iran War w/ Matt Duss | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

Writing in Foreign Policy, Matt Duss argues that Donald Trump’s rush to war is both

stupid and illegal. It is also wildly unpopular with the public. But he also observes that

congress has been reluctant to challenge Trump’s policy, although some progressives

have now forced the issue to a vote. Matt is a frequent guest of the show and foreign

policy expert. I talked to him about the dangers of a new war and also the larger

systematic problems of the imperial presidency.

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Jeet HeerTwitterJeet Heer is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation and host of the weekly Nation podcast, The Time of Monsters. He also pens the monthly column “Morbid Symptoms.” The author of In Love with Art: Francoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman (2013) and Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essays and Profiles (2014), Heer has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The American Prospect, The GuardianThe New Republic, and The Boston Globe.


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