Once again the US is at war in the Middle East, and once again the “coalition of the willing” is Israel standing alone, hand-in-bloody-hand with the US. If history is a guide, when the US boot comes down, freedom and humanity are not the winners. The autocratic and sclerotic regime in Iran slaughtered tens of thousands of protestors in recent months, and the murderous medieval rulers of that land were widely reviled and resisted by their own people. During the protests, and now with the war, desperation, rage, sadness, fear, and uncertainty characterize the reaction of many Iranians of good will, both in-country and in the diaspora. We dive into the contradictions and begin the agonizing process of sifting through the wreckage with Sepehr Vakil, an associate professor of Learning Sciences in the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University, and an engaged scholar/activist, author of Revolutionary Engineers: Learning, Politics, and Activism at Aryamehr University of Technology.

Power habitually lies in public to make a particularly egregious point: We can lie in public, and you can’t stop us. “We didn’t murder that protester, she was a domestic terrorist determined to kill police;” “I strangled that Black man to death because I feared for my life.” The debate over whether the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank is indeed a genocide is a fraudulent diversion—the genocide was pre-announced by government leaders in October, 2023: “We will starve them; we will deny them medicines and fuels; we will make Gaza uninhabitable.” The so-called ceasefire is also a ruse, a phony attempt to change the international narrative while continuing to murder, drive out, and erase the population. We’re joined in conversation with Nell and Leta Hirschmann-Levy, two brave and intrepid sisters from New York City whose opposition to the US/Israeli genocide in Palestine has led them to picket lines, boycotts, rallies, organizing campaigns, and to Palestine itself.

The attacks of September 11, 2001 were used by the powerful in the government and the bought media in the most manipulative and shameless way, whipping up Islamaphobia and xenophobia to justify and accelerate a rush to war. This would be a war without boundaries, justified battlefields, or any identifiable end-point—a “war on terror.” The war-makers never elaborated on the objectives of their war—where it would be fought, how it would be conducted, or how it could be won—simply that it would be a crusade against faceless and nameless evil-doers wherever they might be lurking. The message boomed forth: shut up, salute, and march in step with a revitalized imperialist project. Remarkably, amidst the manufactured frenzy and panic in every direction, an antiwar movement was brought to life that created a significant counter-narrative that stood up against the tide. We’re joined in conversation with co-host Jeff Jones and Jeremy Varon, an activist-scholar, Professor of History at the New School for Social Research in New York, and author of Our Grief is not a Cry for War, a social history of the movement against the “war on terror.”