The truth about Iran

0:01Noel King:Four Americans died last week in a war with Iran that our government has told us repeatedly was over or nearly finished. Private Isabella Gonzalez was 19. Her friends in Texas told CBS News she wanted people to think of her as brave. And they do. We're really proud of her. We just wish we could see her again. First Lieutenant Tyler Feehan was 25. He planned to go to law school. His mom and dad say he liked to quote Elle Woods. What, like it's hard? Sergeant Angel Rompersad was 28. She was from Ozone Park, Queens. They died in Jordan. Sergeant Michael Emmanuel Swinton, who was 30, died in Iraq.

0:37His wife wrote on Facebook, I will never recover from this.

0:41Noel King:What is going on in Iran? The Trump administration from the beginning has offered inconsistent messaging about the purpose of this war and about the plans to get out of it. On Today Explained from Vox, the war is back on, what we know and what we don't and why we don't. Support for this show today comes from Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter.

1:18With deep research, Claude's research capabilities go way deeper than basic web search. Comprehensive, reliable analysis with proper citations. turning hours of research into minutes. For problems worth solving, you can get started with Claude at Claude.ai slash Today Explained. That's Claude.ai slash Today Explained. Support for today comes from Apple News Plus. Apple News Plus has everything you're into all in one place. Over 500 top publications covering local and national news, food, sports, plus daily puzzles, audio, and more. New subscribers try it free for one month at news.apple slash learn.

1:52Terms apply. This is Today Explained. My name is Robbie Grammer. I'm a national security reporter at The Wall Street Journal.

2:01Noel King:All right, let's start on June 17th. President Trump presents the American people with this memorandum of understanding with Iran. On Sunday, we reached an agreement with Iran that achieves everything we set out to accomplish, everything and much more. And he and Vice President J.D. Vance suggest that this marks the beginning of the end of the war. You see people, both the hardliners, but also the more political people, saying our relationship with the United States over the past 47 years has been a mistake. Let's turn over a new leaf. What was in the MOU? Yeah, well, look, this MOU was never supposed to be a final peace deal.

2:38It was supposed to be the start of peace talks. But what was in the MOU was, importantly, a cessation of hostilities, both in Iran and in Lebanon, where the U.S. ally Israel had been fighting against one of Iran's most powerful proxy forces, Hezbollah, and Iran committing to never develop or procure a nuclear weapon. and talks about reopening the Strait of Hormuz, this really important strategic choke point through which a lot of the world's oil, gas, energy demands flow. And of course, flash forward over a month from now, and the two sides are striking each other again. And so it's brought up this really important question, is the MOU worth the piece of paper that it was written on?

3:28And that's something that, you know, American officials, a lot of our allies, members of Congress are really wrestling with at this point.

3:37Noel King:Do we know how things started to fall apart? Like, what was the moment when the MOU became possibly not worth the paper it's printed on? Well, there's two ways to look at this. One is it's death by a thousand cuts, that after this MOU was signed, Iran didn't actually quite reopen the Strait of Hormuz fully to let tanker traffic through, that there was a small series of tit-for-tat strikes where Iran would target some ships that were going through the strait, and the U.S. would in turn launch limited strikes against Iranian military targets. But there's also a very valid argument to be made that this MOU was sort of dead from the beginning.

4:20And that is to say, you know, the entire point of this war was that the U.S. wanted Iran to abandon its goals to obtain a nuclear weapon. That's what it was all about. That was about 99 percent. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. The Iranian regime, has it done that? Has it shifted its goals? The answer, everyone agrees, is no. Even after all of the pummeling, even after the U.S. and Israel took out Iran's top leadership and some of its top generals, the Iranian regime, which has proved incredibly resilient in the face of this war hasn't backed down.

4:59Noel King:So we are, of course, being reminded that the U.S. is at war in some really unfortunate ways. We had three American service members killed in Jordan last Friday. Video circulating online appears to show Iranian missiles hitting a military base in Jordan. What happened there? Iran has continued to try to hit U.S. military bases, some of its Gulf allies with drones and missiles. And up to this point, the United States has been devastatingly effective at blocking these, at shooting these down with missile interceptors, with counter drone equipment, with targeting some Iranian drone and missile sites before they're launched.

5:39The problem here is sort of like a very tragic law of averages. You know, at a certain point, Iran is going to get lucky as this drags on. And also the U.S. is starting to run low on interceptors, according to officials we've spoken to. So there was this very tragic incident where an Iranian missile struck a U.S. base in Jordan near some containerized housing units where military personnel sleep. And tragically, you know, there was a significant number of soldiers or service members who were injured and three as well were killed.

6:13Noel King:The specifics of what Iran is able to do at this moment militarily are now being, as you know, pretty hotly contested. President Trump has said a few times that Iran's ballistic missile capacity was nearly destroyed in the war. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth took some very tough questions in a hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday. On day 14 of this conflict, in the second week of the conflict, you stated that Iran's military had been, quote, destroyed and, quote, made combat ineffective. Was that an accurate statement? Yes or no? Iran's ability to challenge the United States of America at the level at which we're capable of.

6:50That's not what I asked you, Mr. Secretary. You said.

6:52Noel King:We have gotten the message from the administration that Iran's military capabilities are destroyed or close to it. I read in your newspaper that Iran's military technology is actually improving. What is going on here? Well, you know, you said the word nearly there. And I think that's so important because about two weeks into the war, you heard top administration officials like Hegseth Trump say that Iran's military was destroyed or completely destroyed. Never before has a modern, capable military, which Iran used to have, been so quickly destroyed and made combat ineffective, devastated. And now they're starting to hedge.

7:31You're starting to hear nearly destroyed or significantly degraded. No one ever stated that every single missile was gone. And I think that points to this very worrying trend of the administration being incredibly overconfident in the first days of the war. I think there's two points here. One, the Iranian military has proven pretty resilient, has been able to sort of even under the thumb of American military power rebuild some of its missile and drone capabilities. And two, it's starting to adapt that. They're starting to try and use new tactics to try to get around duck and white, weave through American air defenses here.

8:10And I think there's a real fear that if Iran tries new tactics with different missiles and drones here, finds things that start working as American service members start worrying about dwindling supplies of more military or air defense interceptors that Iran can start to get lucky with more free here.

8:32Noel King:All right. So Iran is adapting in real time. The U.S. is responding in real time. That hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday was essentially about the question, is the United States going to have to spend a lot more money on this war? What do you think? I mean, the answer is yes. The Pentagon keeps revising up the cost of the war. At first, about a week ago, it was estimated$29 billion, according to official figures. Yesterday, Hegseth put it at about$37.5 billion. And they're asking for Congress for an additional supplemental of$67 billion to help backfill, replenish some of the stocks of munitions, to help pay for some of the training and logistics and supply that's going into this campaign.

9:13And the bottom line, I mean, taking a step back, is there an end in sight to this? The answer is no, because Iran is still trying to control the Strait of Hormuz. Iran still hasn't given up its strategic ambition of trying to obtain a nuclear weapon or at least maintain a nuclear program so it can be one turn of the screw eventually away from getting a nuclear weapon. And so we're at this massive impasse as the cost piles up, as the casualties start increasing on the American side. And that's put a lot of pressure on the administration right now.

9:46Noel King:So it's worth knowing what Iran wants. It's also worth, it seems to me, knowing whether Iran thinks it can win this war. What does your reporting show us about whether Iran thinks it can win, whether Iran thinks it can burn daylight until this war becomes so unpopular in the U.S. that the U.S. is forced to change strategy? Like, how confident is Iran right now? Yeah, well, look, when we talk to American officials and other experts, when my colleagues talk to Iranian officials, I think there's two factors that play in here. The first is that there is an overriding sense in Iran that they have the upper hand here.

10:22Now, obviously, the United States has succeeded in a really overwhelming scale on the tactical side. Its planes, largely unharassed, can fly over and bomb Iran. But Iran's military has always historically relied on this unconventional military side, on using proxy militias, on using unconventional capabilities. And so here, Iran thinks that it has the upper hand for exactly the reason you said, and that is that they think they can outweigh the United States, that they can sit there, they can take more punishment. They can sort of cling on to the Strait of Hormuz, keep dragging out negotiations in a way where political pressure could build.

11:07The war could could get more and more costly, especially ahead of these midterms for Trump, where a significant portion of his electorate voted for him on the belief that there would be no new wars in the Middle East, no new costly foreign entanglements. And that's a pressure that Trump has to face. And the Iranian regime, of course, you know, not answering to the will of the Iranian people, to say the least, does not have to deal with that. The other factor here that I think is important is there are growing rifts within the remnants of the Iranian regime. It's grading on a curve because everyone left is a hardliner, but there are the so-called hardest hardliners who want to double down, keep this war going, keep dragging the United States in to turn this into yet another Middle East military quagmire for them.

11:53And there are those who do want to deal, who do say, look, maybe there's a path forward. Maybe we can negotiate an end to this war, get the war over with, and start trying to get back on our feet economically.

12:11Noel King:That was The Wall Street Journal's Robbie Grammer. When we come back, silence and half-truths from the Pentagon.

12:27Support for today's show comes from Vanguard. For the financial advisors listening, Vanguard has a message for you. So do I. Hello, financial advisors. Their message, finding real value in fixed income, isn't always easy. The bond market is enormous, complex, and often far from transparent. Some firms may steer you toward a few headline-grabbing funds and leave it at that. Vanguard takes a different approach. vanguards bond offerings are built around institutional quality standards and for them that's more than a marketing phrase advisors can access a broad lineup of fixed income solutions that includes more than 80 bond funds managed by a global team of over 200 sector specialists so if you're looking to give your clients consistent results year in and year out you can go see the record for yourself at vanguard.com slash audio.

13:23That's vanguard.com slash audio. All investing is subject to risk, you guys. Vanguard Marketing Corporation Distributor.

13:37Support for the show today comes from Anthropic. In case you were wondering who's behind Claude, that's Anthropic. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. Is that you? It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you. Have you been looking for that? Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter with deep research. Claude's research capabilities go way deeper than basic web search. Comprehensive, reliable analysis with proper citations, turning hours of research into minutes.

14:11We love a proper citation, don't we? Plus, you can connect Claude to your professional tools like GitHub, Jira, HubSpot, Notion, Google Workspace, and watch it become your command center with context from all your work. That means Claude has context from your calendar, emails, and all of your go-to tools. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at Claude.ai slash Today Explained. That's Claude.ai slash Today Explained.

14:44Support for the show comes from Pocket Hose. It's a little hose you put in your pocket. That probably isn't what it is. Let's find out together. Pocket Hose is the number one expandable hose in the world. It's super lightweight, easy to manage, easy to store. You just turn the water on and it grows. And then you turn the water off and it shrinks back to pocket size. Maybe it does fit in your pocket. This is exciting. The pocket hose ballistic is reinforced with a liquid crystal polymer used in bulletproof vests, of all things, making the anti-burst sleeve practically bulletproof. So if anyone's shooting at you while you're watering your lawn, don't worry about it.

15:28Now for a limited time, when you purchase a new pocket hose ballistic, you'll get a free 360 degree rotating pocket pivot and a free thumb drive nozzle. What is going on? This is too good to be true. Just text EXPLAINED to 64000. That's EXPLAINED to 64000 for your two free gifts with purchase. Text EXPLAINED to 64000. Message and data rates may apply.

16:02This is Today Explained.

16:04Noel King:Tom Nichols, staff writer at The Atlantic, professor emeritus at the U.S. Naval War College. Eighteen American service members have died in this war in Iran. What has been the norm during wartime about what the American public can expect to know about the deaths of service members? In normal times, with a normal administration and a real Secretary of Defense running a competent Pentagon, you would have daily briefings. You would have people, including the Secretary of Defense, but also the chairman, lower-level officers, and civilian leaders going out there every day, answering real questions from real journalists, and giving real answers.

16:49We don't have that now. Now the Pentagon treats the media as an enemy operation. So the American people are having to literally pry this information out of the Pentagon at this point. I worked in the Senate during the first Gulf War, and I remember them vividly. We had almost daily briefings, including briefings from the theater. That's how people like Norman Schwarzkopf became household names in America. I promised some of you all a few days ago that as soon as the opportunity presented itself, I would give you a complete rundown on what we were doing and, more importantly, why we were doing it.

17:30Noel King:Actually, I am old enough to remember that just a little bit. Yeah, that was the 90s. Yeah. And then how did things proceed from there? Well, the problem after the initial phases of combat operations in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, we had regular briefings. And then when those operations were over, we still had troops in the field, but we weren't doing briefings every day. The men and women in uniform, U.S. and coalition alike, are performing superbly. The resistance that's being encountered was expected. It has not affected coalition progress. Nonetheless, there was plenty of reporting if people wanted to read it.

18:10And I think part of what happened, especially with Afghanistan, is that Americans simply tuned it out. Earlier this week, I recommended and the president approved the one-time deployment of approximately 3 ,200 Marines to Afghanistan for seven months. The deployment underscores once more America's enduring commitment to the mission in Afghanistan. They just stopped listening. They just sort of accepted that or assumed that American forces were going to be in places like Afghanistan for, as it turns out, 20 years. But in this kind of situation where there are ongoing major combat operations where Americans are being killed by sustained hostile action in an active war zone.

18:53Yeah, we had pretty regular briefings back in, I guess, what we all think of as the before times.

19:02Noel King:When was the last time we had a Pentagon briefing about this war in Iran? May 5th. Well, as you know, President Trump has directed U.S. Central Command to restart the free flow of commerce through the Strait of Hormuz under the umbrella of Project Freedom. May 5th. Okay, so it has been months. Yes. And that is, you would argue, outside of the norm. So when we miss those briefings, when we don't get those briefings, what don't we know? Well, the problem with this Pentagon is that the briefings themselves weren't worth very much. They were Pete Hegseth coming out and, you know, jumping around and stabbing the air.

19:41And someone once said that he always sounds like he's auditioning for the lead role in the high school play. Did you not hear my remarks? I mean, we're ensuring the mission gets accomplished, but we are very clear-eyed, as the president has been. unlike other presidents, about the foolish policies of the past that recklessly pulled us in to things that were not tethered to actual clear objectives. And then, of course, they would cut over to General Cain, who would have to be much more restrained and just give numbers and facts and try not to get sideways either with Hegseth or Trump. As a result of Iran's indiscriminate attacks across the region, there are currently 22 ,500 1 ,500 mariners embarked on more than 1 ,550 commercial vessels trapped in the Arabian Gulf, unable to transit.

20:34So I don't know that we're missing that much from not having those briefings, but they should have them anyway, so that at least the American public can see guys like Hegseth being evasive and yelling at the media and, you know, accusing the media of bad faith when the media is simply asking questions like, how many people have been wounded? What are our operations achieving? What are the goals of this operation? None of that's happening now. And I think they've just decided that when this war went poorly for them, as it has, I mean, I believe we've lost this war. They just decided to stop talking to the American public.

21:13Noel King:It is worth noting that President Trump speaks, including extemporaneously off the cuff about the war in Iran, not infrequently. What do you make of what the president is telling us about the war in Iran? I think he's lying. Oh. Misleading people, exaggerating, making misstatements, but in some cases, just flat out telling lies. We've already won, Bella Charlie. They have very little left, and they want to make a deal so badly. They called a little while ago. They want to make a deal so badly. We've won. Let me say it, we've won. You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the bet.