Stopping the Iran War
Emma Ashford on possible off-ramps from conflict.

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The US/Israel War against Iran is shaping out to be a much bigger mess than expected
even by critics. As it turns into a regional conflict that has embroiled more than a dozen
nations, are there any possible ways Donald Trump can be forced to pull back. I spoke
with international affairs scholar Emma Ashford of the Stimson Center about the war
and paths to peace.
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Smoke and flames rise at the site of airstrikes on an oil depot in Tehran on March 7, 2026.
(Sasan / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images)The US/Israel War against Iran is shaping up to be a much bigger mess than expected, even by critics. As it turns into a regional conflict that has embroiled more than a dozen nations, are there any possible ways Donald Trump can be forced to pull back? I spoke with international affairs scholar Emma Ashford of the Stimson Center about the war and paths to peace.
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Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
The conflict in the Middle East is currently in an intermittent holding action with an extended ceasefire but no diplomatic breakthrough. To assess where things are going, I sat down with the foreign policy analyst Anusar Farooqui, who runs an excellent substack called Policy Tensor and posts on Twitter here. We discussed the resiliency and growing stature of Iran, as well as the signs that unipolar US hegemony is coming to an end, to be replaced by a multipolar world.
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