Podcast / The Time of Monsters / Sep 22, 2024

Israel’s Expanding War Against Lebanon

On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Trita Parsi on the dangers of a lame-duck president with spiraling crisis.

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Israel’s Expanding War Against Lebanon | The Time of Monsters
byThe Nation Magazine

On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Trita Parsi on the dangers of a lame duck president with spiraling crisis.

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Lebanese army soldiers stand guard near a hospital in Beirut on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fighters.

(Anwar Amro / AFP via Getty Images)

Joe Biden’s foreign policy team was hoping for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas before his term was over, perhaps as early as the end of September. This always seemed wishful thinking but now is almost impossible as Israel not only continues to fight in Gaza but has expanded its conflict with Palestinian forces to neighboring Lebanon. The expanding conflict once again raises the question of Biden’s bear-hug strategy, which the administration argues would help foster peace and restraint. This failure of this policy is likely to haunt whoever wins the White House in November.

To survey the dire scene and discuss the possibility of American involvement in yet another large Middle Eastern war, I talked to Trita Parsi, executive vice-president of the Quincy Institute.

The Nation Podcasts
The Nation Podcasts

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.

Stopping the Iran War w/ Emma Ashford | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

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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Support independent journalism that does not fall in line

Even before February 28, the reasons for Donald Trump’s imploding approval rating were abundantly clear: untrammeled corruption and personal enrichment to the tune of billions of dollars during an affordability crisis, a foreign policy guided only by his own derelict sense of morality, and the deployment of a murderous campaign of occupation, detention, and deportation on American streets. 

Now an undeclared, unauthorized, unpopular, and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iran has spread like wildfire through the region and into Europe. A new “forever war”—with an ever-increasing likelihood of American troops on the ground—may very well be upon us.  

As we’ve seen over and over, this administration uses lies, misdirection, and attempts to flood the zone to justify its abuses of power at home and abroad. Just as Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth offer erratic and contradictory rationales for the attacks on Iran, the administration is also spreading the lie that the upcoming midterm elections are under threat from noncitizens on voter rolls. When these lies go unchecked, they become the basis for further authoritarian encroachment and war. 

In these dark times, independent journalism is uniquely able to uncover the falsehoods that threaten our republic—and civilians around the world—and shine a bright light on the truth. 

The Nation’s experienced team of writers, editors, and fact-checkers understands the scale of what we’re up against and the urgency with which we have to act. That’s why we’re publishing critical reporting and analysis of the war on Iran, ICE violence at home, new forms of voter suppression emerging in the courts, and much more. 

But this journalism is possible only with your support.

This March, The Nation needs to raise $50,000 to ensure that we have the resources for reporting and analysis that sets the record straight and empowers people of conscience to organize. Will you donate today?

Jeet Heer

Jeet 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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