Today, Explained - Iran won the war

Episode Date: June 17, 2026

Deal or no deal? Doesn’t matter. The war on Iran has irrevocably transformed the country and the region. This episode was produced by Peter Balonon-Rosen and Kelli Wessinger, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by David Tatasciore and Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. An anti-President Trump billboard on the street in Tehran. Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP via Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The newly 80-year-old president of the United States is in France for the G7 summit. Reporters keep asking about the peace deal, he says he'll be signing with Iran this Friday, mostly because no one knows the deets. He gave him $1.7 billion in cash, green cash, from banks. But the president wants to talk about Barack Obama? They tried to bribe their way out of it. And you know what the Iranians did? They laughed at Obama, and they said he's a stupid son of a bitch.

Why so salty, sir? Oh, J.K. Rolling, I know why. President Trump didn't achieve any of his objectives in the war with Iran, a war that's cost Americans maybe $100 billion so far, and Trump might end up giving Iran $300 billion to settle this war. Compare that to Obama's... 1.7 billion and hundreds of millions of dollars. Iran won the war.

Coming up on Today Explained from Vox. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Support for today, Explain, comes from Service Now. AI is moving fast, but without visibility, it's just chaos, different tools, different models, different teams using AI in completely different ways. A mess. Service Now turns that mess into control. With the AI control tower, you see all your AI across the business in one place. Oh, what it's doing, what it's done, what it's about to do, so you stay in control.

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Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, boom. Okay. It's today explained. Nargis Bajoli recently co-wrote a piece titled Iran's new grand strategy in foreign affairs. Here's a sample. Rather than breaking Iran, the crucible of war has transformed it in unanticiped. To survive and establish new strategic advantages, the Islamic Republic had to adapt and innovate, changing how it waged war, ran the state and managed society. We wanted to hear more, and we started with the obvious.

The United States is taking an L. Yeah, well, I think part of the problem is we didn't really ever know what this war was about. There were a few days when this war was about, let's bring freedom to the Iranian people. To the great proud people of Iran, I should. say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Then there were a few days when this war was about, you know, the death blows to the Islamic Republic. A vicious group of very hard, terrible people. And then they were also, you know, like this is going to prevent Iran from making a nuclear weapon.

I'll say it again. They can never have a nuclear weapon. Even though in June we supposedly obliterated their nuclear weapons program. Completely and totally obliterated. Their sites were obliterated. It's totally obliterated this site. The order we received from our commander-in-chief was focused. It was powerful, and it was clear. It was never really clear what this was really about. We had huge decapitation strikes that happened across the Iran on the first days of this war

that took out essentially the founding generation of the revolution. Iran's formerly supreme leader, Ayatollah, Hameh, is dead. We thought we were somewhere where the Islamic Republic was on its last legs, and all we had to do was push it a little bit more. When we are finished, take over your government, it will be yours to take.

And so what we have now in, what are we, in June of 2026, three and a half months after this war started, we have a completely new and younger generation in charge in Iran. That is bolder. That is not as afraid of the United States. And then on the other hand,

And you also have, obviously, the trade of hormones, which was not under necessarily this kind of Iranian control before, now is. And you have Iran, again, putting its will and basically saying Israel needs to pull back from Lebanon. The end of the war in Lebanon is quite connected to putting an end to the war on Iran. These were conditions that Iran could have never made in February of 2026. And now what we have coming out of this war is a stronger and more entrenched political establishment that leans heavily towards the IRGC and, you know, Iranian sort of military, that is bolder and that now has sort of shown itself as being a key pillar of West Asia. That's going to create a fundamentally different Middle East going forward. Yeah, tell us more about this new regime, because I think everyone's kind of heard, oh, yeah, new Ayatollah. even more hardline than previous Ayatollah.

Does that sum up this new generation that's in charge of Iran now, or is there more to it? There's a lot more to it. So first of all, I think one of the problems we've always had with Iran here is we think about it as a dictatorship, as the country led by, like, one man at the top. That was part of the reason why they thought

that they could kill the father, Ali Khomey, and then the system would crumble under him. But you have a lot of discussion and debate all throughout the political system and throughout society in Iran. It is a highly dynamic system and a highly dynamic society. What we now have is, yes, we have the son of the former leader, Moshab al-Hamaneh, who is now in charge.

But what he represents is a whole-scale generational shift that's happened in Iran. We have a younger generation that, first of all, grew up pretty much after the revolution in Iran had already happened. Their side was already in power. That brings a certain kind of confidence and swagger to it. This generation fought the United States and Israel in Iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon. And from their calculations, they won in those theaters. So they are also a generation that is not afraid of confronting the Americans and the Israelis. They experience themselves on the battlefield, how they were able to push back the U.S. military, for example, from Iraq and so on and so forth.

So there's a boldness to this generation. Their father's generation came about in the 60s and 70s. Yes, they were anti-imperialists. Yes, they fought against the Shah and sort of having the United States involved in Iran's affairs. But still, there was a level of respect for the might of what U.S. power meant and psychologically a sort of inferiority complex. You're now dealing with a generation that doesn't have that. That's fundamentally different. This happened in Iran is now you have Gen Xers and elder millennials now running the show. I mean, this is one of the reasons they were able to beat out the propaganda game. Are you talking about like the Lego AI videos? Yeah, the Lego videos. Make Israel great again. Your government is run by pedophiles. Which were funny.

Which were really funny. And they're still putting them out, right? And they're utilizing trap songs and like rap lyrics. And you can tell it's young. You thought you would win. Uh-huh. Now look at the mess that your country is in. Look at it.

I mean, if anyone spends enough time on the internet, this is not contrived. This is a generation that grew up online. There is a particular kind of shift that has happened that now Iran is being led by people who are of the 21st century, whereas a lot of these other countries are still being led by people who are fundamentally formed in the 20th century. Okay, Momer. I mean, how does the fact? that Iran is now being led by Gen Xers, millennials, and not boomers like it was before,

or like our country currently is, affect the new state of affairs in the country. I mean, what does that mean for the way the country is being governed internally? This generation is not interested in advancing the revolution anymore, right? The revolution happened. It's a fact. And now they're interested in governing a state. what this war has done is it's shown that there's a technocratic class in Iran that is of the younger generation that has now come to the forefront that was able to not only execute this war in a very efficient and I never like to call wars clean because they're not clean but in a way that like made sense to people

and they could see what was happening and you hear from Iranians over and over again that besides the sounds of the bombs we didn't feel like we were in war and there was no shortages of anything. And so now what this new generation is attempting to do is to say we will bring that technocratic expertise to not just our military affairs, but to running the country itself. And that is sort of the big question right now, is can they deliver on that? How has this new government shifted the balance of power in the region? The United States began to set up its security architecture in the Middle East, starting with the first Gulf War, in which it really began to establish its permanent military.

basis in the Arab Gulf regions. The promise was bring in the U.S. military bases. We will guarantee your safety. And we will also bring you into the American fold. You'll have great business opportunities. You'll make a ton of money. What we now see is that the Gulf understands that having American bases is actually a liability because the United States started a war without consulting them. It was not able to protect any of these Gulf countries and their economies. Iran is the size of Western Europe. I feel like we forget that a lot in the United States. But the reality is Iran is a massive country geographically. It's a massive country population-wise. And so the Gulf countries need to figure out a way to live with Iran that is no longer guaranteed through

through a big brother protection of the United States that actually didn't materialize. So moving forward, first of all, it seems like the Gulf Arab countries have come to this realization, some quicker than others. But in essence, they are making payments to Iran now. They're figuring out ways to be able to sort of co-live with them into the future without Iran being isolated like it was in the past. That's a huge difference. The Persian Gulf region is fundamentally transformed. It will no longer be a place where the Americans can do whatever. they want, it will now be a place where Iran will reassert its hegemony over that region. Iran sees itself as having won this war. And because this generation is bolder, it's actually

going to be like, we're not going to budge. If that means your economy is going to hurt more, fine, you've been hurting our economy for 47 years. We're just going to play a game of chicken and see who blinks first. That's this new generation that we're dealing with. Nargis Bajoli is an associate professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Now that we've heard about the Iranian government, we want to hear about the Iranian people, and we will when we're back. Support for today's explain comes from Home Serve. Owning home is a joy. You get your little piece of the American dream, but then it turns out that you have to pay for repairs. What? Repair costs hit hard and fast when you're a homeowner, and that's where homeserve comes in. Regular homeowner insurance doesn't cover a lot of the day-to-day wear and tear.

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servicenow.com. You're gushmikonid. You are listening to today explained. My name's Holly Degress. I am a senior fellow at the DC-based think tank, the Washington Institute, a curator of the Iranist newsletter on Stubstack. I'm also Iranian-American and spent my formative years in Iran. And who were you rooting for last night when Iran played New Zealand? I mean, I know it's a controversial topic right now, but I was cheering for Iran. But you felt complicated about it, or no? I think there's just complex feelings right now because of everything that's happened from January,

starting with the unprecedented massacre of anti-regime protesters to the war itself. But, you know, there was a time when Team Medli, as we call them, or the national team in Persian, used to unite Iranians from Tehran to Taranjolos. And I grew up in L.A. before moving to Iran. And I remember the 1998 World Cup when the U.S. and Iran played. And Iranians were dancing on the street in Westwood Boulevard in Los Angeles. And I remember my cousins telling me it was the first time Iranians in Iran were dancing on the street, which was an act of defiance in its own and such a shock at the time. And then years later, of course, I would live in Iran and actually take part in two of those celebrations for two different World Cups. So, you know, there's a lot of feelings there. Well, we just spent a bunch of time, Holly, talking about the new government in Iran and how it's been operating since this war began. We're coming to you to ask what life has been like for the Iranian people since this war started. And it's hard to know because it's been hard to access the Iranian

people. Throughout this war, what we've really struggled with is getting a pulse on the Iranian people, as you noted. And that was because there was a state-imposed internet blackout. It was the fifth iteration and the longest globally, according to the internet monitor net blocks. And so for people like me who obviously can't travel back to Iran and relies on Iranian, like monitoring, Persian. language, social media, or even texting on messaging apps like WhatsApp or Telegram with people inside Iran, I effectively, and not just me, but roughly four to 10 million members of the Iranian diaspora were caught off from contact with their friends and loved ones in Iran. And that was

really gutting. And that being said, I should probably go back in time. and explain what the other ones were. We first saw this happen during the bloody November 2019 protests, which security forces killed 1,500 protesters and used the dark cover of an internet shut down to cover it up. And then we saw again during the 2022 Woman Life Freedom Uprising. And then it was these two wars, one being the 12-day war in June 2025,

and of course this recent war. And then the one I would say was the worst of it in terms of communications blackout was in January. And that was during the unprecedented massacre of thousands of protesters at the hands of security forces in a span of 48 hours. So do Iranians find a way to sort of cope with these internet blackouts? Is there, I don't know, a sense of routine at this point? Well, there's several things happening there. I think coping is a, it's a hard word to use. Just imagine your phone stops working. Like, as any American who can't message their family or friends that are maybe living in other countries, they can't go on Twitter or Instagram. Like, maybe you can't watch Netflix anymore. And so like- That feels like the least of your worries when your country's big bob, but I take the point. But no, but I'm just trying to give you a sense of like how it feels to not have access.

And believe it or not, that was the sentiment Iranians felt. So one of the big impacts of the Internet shutdown started with really having deep ramifications for the Iranian economy. The Internet blackout during the war cost, according to an Iranian businessman, $80 million daily. And 20% of Iran's workforce lost their jobs during the blackout. When and why did this internet blackout come to an end exactly? So it came to an end on May 26th. So once I think that the Islamic Republic felt that the negotiations for the memorandum of understanding were going somewhere, I got the sense that that's when they felt comfortable enough to lift the switch and turn the internet back on.

And it also coincided with comments from President Massad Peschian. But I think it was overall a decision made by the Supreme National Security Council because I think for them they were alleging it was on the purpose of national security. But I would argue otherwise. And what did you hear from people once this. blackout was lifted. One of the things that I saw that stood out to me, someone said, hello from Iran's prison after three months. We came from solitary confinement to the general ward. Wow. And I saw people start sharing stories, sharing things that they remember from the war or their anti-regime sentiment. Some diaspora Iranians began to post, like often humorously,

about what Iranians inside Iran missed. So they used the hashtag, Bacti Qishamo and Abuid, when you weren't here. And they started telling them, well, this happened and that happened. And some of them were taking jobs at the clerical establishment or at pro-war, anti-war Iranians. But there was a lot of humor in that moment, but also a frustration of feeling like their rights were taken away because they were unable to access the outside world. But there was also a real fear.

I remember that someone started saying maybe a week after the Internet went back online. Then she lived in the West and she was saying her mom kept calling every hour. And she was like, Mom, why do you keep calling? Everything's fine here. She's like, I'm afraid that I won't see her face for a long time again. And I mean, I imagine there's residual fears that, they could just hit the kill switch again, right, whenever they feel like it, in two weeks, and two months and two years.

Absolutely. And, you know, just the other week, we had these tit for tat strikes that happened. The first, I think, was the one between Iran and Israel over Lebanon. And I remember some of the commentary at that time was this real deep fear. And I'll read some of what Iranians said at that during that 48-hour span where we thought that there might be a resumption of the war. So someone said, please don't start a war.

I don't want to be unemployed for another three months. Another Iranian said, I'm another internet shut down in Iran away from a psychiatric hospital. And then there was, I'm not afraid of missiles. I'm afraid of going offline.

And I'm scared to sleep and wake up in the morning to know internet. And then there were other ones that were Iranians that were just, you know, using dark humor or just making light of the situation. And these also stood out to me. Now is the best time to use the excuse of the internet shutdown to get that pretty girl's number. And then there was, I'm against war for now because I can't accept that I've seen three wars and in all three I've been single. And then finally, I said to my friend in Iran, what are you doing?

He said downloading and saving porn. Oh, my God. He's worried about another internet shutdown. Oh, man. I mean, presumably the government knows this sentiment exists, that the internet is tantamount to liberty for the Iranian people. And as we heard early in the show, this government, for all its faults, is evidently interested in the work of governance.

Does that mean they might get the message that these. internet blackouts are wildly unpopular and maybe keeping the internet free-ish and open-ish is a ticket to keeping your people reasonably content. I think if they were in the business of doing the kind of governance that their people wanted, they wouldn't have had these cyclical anti-regime protests over the years. But to your point, the truth is, I think they really, after the three months and once they felt comfortable enough with the ceasefire negotiations, they turned the Internet back on because they felt safe. But when I look at the big picture for them, this shutdown and the ones before it is really not a matter of national security, but one about controlling the narrative. and also making sure that Iranians' voices aren't heard by the outside world.

At the end of the day, this is an authoritarian government that has not had the interests of the Iranian people at heart. They've been dealing with systemic mismanagement corruption and repression for decades, and that's why people have been going to the streets for years. And I'll quote Iran-based dissident rapper Timor Salehi, when the news emerged that the memorandum of understanding was being finalized, he posted a video on Instagram and he said, Iran's freedom has never been dependent on the will of another country. So this path won't reach dead end,

whether through war and agreement or even the support of other countries, Iran's freedom seekers are still alive, and they'll keep going step by step. up. Okay, that's it for the show. If you want even more from Holly, she recently wrote Iran's next internet blackout is inevitable for the Atlantic. Peter Balin-on-Rosen produced today

with Kelly, who's celebrating a birthday. Happy birthday, Kelly. Happy birthday, Kendrick. Happy birthday, Nim. I'm an Al-Assadi edited, David Tadishore and Patrick Boyd-Mix. Gabriel Dunitav. Fact-checked.

I'm Sean Ramosferam. This is today explained. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu, it's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier, CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you?

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