When the United States and Israel launched a joint war on Iran two weeks ago, U.S. President Donald Trump urged Iranians to rise up and rid themselves of their tyrannical rulers. He seemed buoyed by his success in swiftly removing Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in January. But the war in Iran has not progressed as smoothly as Trump might have liked. The authoritarian regime that runs the Islamic Republic remains firmly in place.

The historian Stephen Kotkin, who is the Kleinheinz senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, has spent decades thinking about how these regimes function, how they survive, and how they come to an end. In “The Weakness of the Strongmen,” an essay in the January/February issue of Foreign Affairs, Kotkin anatomized authoritarianism, arguing that many of the features that bolster autocrats also present vulnerabilities.

Kotkin is the preeminent biographer of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, a close observer of contemporary Russian and Chinese politics, and a sharp analyst of American foreign policy. He spoke with Executive Editor Justin Vogt on Friday, March 13, and explained what makes authoritarian regimes tick, how their weaknesses can be exploited, and what history tells us about the prospects of success for the American and Israeli effort at regime change in Iran.

You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

For about two weeks, U.S. and Israeli forces have bombarded Iran. They have targeted Iranian military and nuclear sites. They have slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other top Iranian officials. They have even sunk an Iranian vessel deep in the Indian Ocean. Iran has responded by hurling missiles and drones at targets in the Gulf, Israel, and elsewhere in what has become a surprisingly broad and sustained retaliation. U.S. President Donald Trump has promised Iranians some kind of regime change, but that will not be so simple. Iran has declared Khamenei’s son Mojtaba to be his successor, a move that seems to double down on the old order.

In this two-part episode, Senior Editor Daniel Block spoke with leading experts on the course of the war, the future of the Iranian regime, and the upheaval and uncertainty in the wider region.

First, Afshon Ostovar, an associate professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, explored how the Islamic Republic has been reshaped by the attacks—and what it would take to truly dismantle the regime. Then, Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, discussed the widening remit of the war and how it has upended the assumptions and hopes of many Gulf countries.

Block spoke with Ostovar and Vakil on Tuesday, March 10. Both agree that while much remains uncertain about the trajectory of the war, it is already remaking Iran, the Gulf, and the wider Middle East in dangerous ways.

You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Over the weekend, U.S. and Israeli forces struck hundreds of sites across Iran and killed its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Large crowds of Iranians took to the streets, some to mourn, others to celebrate. The Islamic Republic has retaliated and launched strikes of its own across the Middle East.

Much about the joint U.S.-Israeli operation remains unclear—was it meant to eliminate Iran’s nuclear capabilities after failed negotiations? Was it meant to force regime change? With no path to de-escalation in sight, Washington may end up in a larger conflagration than it bargained for.

In this two-part episode, Executive Editor Justin Vogt spoke with two experts to help make sense of the situation.

First, Nate Swanson, the director of the Iran Strategy Project at the Atlantic Council and a former Iran policy adviser to the Trump and Biden administrations. He was director for Iran at the National Security Council between 2022 and 2025 and he served on the Trump administration’s Iran negotiating team in the spring and summer of 2025. Vogt spoke with him on Wednesday, March 4 about the situation on the ground in Iran, Iran’s strategy in the wake of the U.S.-Israeli attacks, and how Iran policy gets made in the Trump administration.

Then, Richard Haass, the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. Toward the end of his long career in government, Haass served as the director of policy planning in the State Department during the George W. Bush administration, at a time when the United States was carrying out a war aimed at regime change in Afghanistan and planning another such war in Iraq. Vogt spoke with Haass on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 3, about the history of regime change operations and how the current war on Iran fits into it.

Both Swanson and Haass make clear that this is a watershed moment for the United States, Iran, and the Middle East more broadly.

You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.