Coercion and Attrition | Interview: Ken Pollack

Every once in a while, The Remnant staff need to remind Jonah Goldberg that we’re running a business here, and that he can’t just putz around with Pod, Chris, or Sarah on every episode. Sometimes, you need someone respectable; sometimes, you need an expert. Today’s guest—the expert to rule them all—is Ken Pollack, here to tell us all about the war in Iran. Join Jonah and Ken as they discuss pain thresholds, public opinion inside Iran, the fallout of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death, the ideology of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Persian nationalism, the original sins of the war, the politics behind the scenes, civil-war spillover, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, oil, exit strategies, and end games. Show Notes: The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Dispatch, based in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, enormous lizards roamed the Earth. More immediately prior to that, Jonah spent two decades at National Review, where he was a senior editor, among other things. He is also a bestselling author, longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times, commentator for CNN, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. When he is not writing the G-File or hosting The Remnant podcast, he finds real joy in family time, attending to his dogs and cat, and blaming Steve Hayes for various things. The podcast transcription below was generated using artificial intelligence and may include occasional errors or misspellings. Music 0:00 [upbeat music] [groans] [upbeat music] Music 0:14 Now, ladies and gentlemen, uh, Music 0:16 could I please have your attention? Can you dig it? Jonah Goldberg 0:27 Greetings, dear listeners. This is Jonah Goldberg, host of the Remnant Podcast, brought to you by The Dispatch and Dispatch Media. We've had a lot of requests for a return of today's guest for let's just say obvious reasons. And I will say I-- I think Yuval Levin is still probably in the number one spot of guests that I will repeatedly quote or reference what they've said in, in the past. But s- in the six months or so since the Iraq-- I mean, since the Iran war started, I would say I've begun a really large number of sentences with, "As Ken Pollack said at the very beginning of all of this," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So Ken Pollack is back. He's the vice president for policy at the Middle East Institute. He's a former colleague of mine at the American Enterprise Institute. Besides MEI and AEI, there are other three-letter agencies that he has been involved with in various places, but we'll just leave it at that. Author of many books, and, uh, working on a new one, which is called or will be about? Interactive transcripts are available to Premium members. Join to follow along with the audio. Join Now More We Think You’d Like