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- [00:04]
Jackie Cole
The telegraph.
- [00:10]
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- [00:53]
Roland Oliphant
I'm Roland Oliphant and this is Iran. The Latest It's Wednesday 15th July, day 24 of the 60 day deadline to reach a peace deal between Iran and and the United States. On today's episode, we'll be speaking to Tim Mack and Jackie Cole, founders of the Iran War Dispatch, a substack that has been looking at the war from the point of view of ordinary Iranian civilians.
- [01:18]
Donald Trump (quoted)
A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran.
- [01:26]
Jackie Cole
Today, President Trump says Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the attacks. Ayatollah.
- [01:37]
Chase Advertiser
The Pentagon is weighing a takeover of that island as a way to force the reopening of the street of Hormuz. Iran begged for this ceasefire and we all know it. Can we turn over a new leaf? Can we change relations in the Middle east permanently?
- [01:52]
Roland Oliphant
Does anyone really think that someone can
- [01:55]
Tim Mack
tell President Trump what to do?
- [01:57]
Donald Trump (quoted)
Come on.
- [02:00]
Roland Oliphant
I'm very pleased to say on today's episode I've got two special guests, Tim Mack and Jackie Cole. They're the founders of the Iran War Dispatch substack Tim and Jackie, welcome to Iran. The latest, the main news overnight is the United States carrying out fresh strikes on Iran, the renewed blockade of its ports, while Tehran has targeted American allies in the Gulf and vowed the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until the US Ends its aggression. Maybe half an hour before I came on, I checked on CENTCOM and they just posted a statement saying they've launched another round of strikes right now. So more bombs hitting Iran at the moment. I'll get into the actual details of what's been hit later on, but I was wondering what what you make of this latest round of escalation.
- [02:46]
Jackie Cole
I think what we're looking out for. You said you were looking into what targets are being hit. Trump is now threatening to hit civilian infrastructure. It seems it's not quite happening in full scale yet, but if that does happen, then we're looking at Iran perhaps retaliating in the same way. So we're already seeing retaliatory strikes on, on the Gulf states. But what I make of this is watching out for what, what the US Is hitting, if they're kind of, if their strikes are contained to the islands in the Persian Gulf and kind of the coast of southern Iran, or if they're going to start hitting tons of energy infrastructure, bridges. Because if so, I think that could very well lead to a full on escalation in retaliation. And as opposed to striking military bases in the Gulf states, we could see much more, much like we did earlier in the war. And also there have been military and civilian casualties in this latest round of strikes. So I'm looking out for the ways in which this escalation is attempting to bring Iran to the table and whether or not it will bring Iran to the table or lead to a kind of full scale regional war.
- [03:49]
Tim Mack
Once, once again, Jackie points out a lot of the really important tactical developments and I think ends with, with a thread that, that we ought to pull on a little bit, which is the strategic leverage that the United States actually has and whether additional strikes will give it that leverage. We went into a ceasefire period or an MOU period based on the idea that the United States was feeling a tremendous amount of pressure due to rising energy prices and dwindling reserves of oil around the world. Trump himself, when he was announcing the MoU, talked about how the strategic reserves were down to about four weeks over this period, over the last few weeks in which there's been a cessation or a pause in some of these hostilities. What we've seen is that those reserves have either stayed about the same or continued to be depleted despite the cessation of immediate hostilities. What that ultimately means is the United States still remains quite threatened by the economic pressures that the Iran war can bring to it. And bombing Iran with additional strikes, whether those are military targets or increasingly civilian infrastructure, doesn't seem to be a strategy to get them out of their fundamental hard spot.
- [05:03]
Roland Oliphant
That's interesting you say that because I'm sure you saw Donald Trump was speaking to Fox News last night.
- [05:08]
Donald Trump (quoted)
I'll save the energy targets for last, but ultimately we'll hit energy targets. Yeah, but we're going to hit them very hard tonight, we're going to hit him very hard tomorrow night, we're going to hit him very hard the night after. And then next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants, next week comes the Bridges, we're going to knock out all their power plants, we're going to knock out all their bridges, unless they get to the table and negotiate.
- [05:38]
Roland Oliphant
I'm wondering what you make of all this. Can this campaign work? In other words, do you see the Iranians being brought back to the negotiating table or to a deal that Donald Trump would accept through this military pressure?
- [05:52]
Jackie Cole
So we saw in Trump's last kind of barrage of massive threats to end a whole civilization, that infamous truth social post that actually that did result in a ceasefire deal, how directly those two things were correlated, we'll never know. But in that period of time, in that short period of time where the world felt like it was revving up for this massive moment, massive air campaign, that was when the first ceasefire was was born between the US And Iran in this war. So as much as I'd like to say these kind of in some ways illegal and in some ways really vicious threats to civilization are not productive in a diplomatic sense, we do have to look back to how they came out last time. And that did bring Iran to the table to some extent. And so I wonder if we're going to see something similar this time around with these massive threats from the administration.
- [06:45]
Roland Oliphant
The details, as far as I can work out what's been hit overnight just to illustrate this. So as I said, CENTCOM of this morning talked about a fresh round of strikes. I don't know what that's striking right now. However, last night after they announced that they were reimposing the US Blockade of vessels going to or from Iranian ports from around about 11:30pm local time. And then they said they launched a seven hour wave of strikes involving U.S. fighter aircraft, drones and naval vessels using precision munitions against Iranian missile and drone strikes, naval capabilities, coastal defense systems to further degrade Iran's capability to threaten commercial shipping and civilian crews. What did they hit? According to Iranian media, seven Iranian military personnel were killed in a missile attack on a barracks in Bampur, which is close to the city of Iran Shah in southeastern Iran in the system Baluchistan Province. There's also this morning smoke scene rising from the southeastern port of Chabahar, which is also in Sistan, Baluchistan, right down in the southeast on the Gulf roman, only about 100 kilometers from the Pakistani border actually. And of course, fresh US strikes also on the port city of Bushehr, which is inside the Persian Gulf, home to the civilian nuclear power plant. Three locations hit there today, according to the city governor Mohammad Mozaffari, speaking to Iranian news agencies. In retaliation, the Iranians say that they struck US Targets in Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain. They said they hit the Al Azraq US Base in Jordan with drones and fired cruise missiles at a US Military logistics center in Kuwait and also struck the facilities of the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. Kuwait and Jordan. Both confirmed they intercepted drones and Bahrain. The general command of the Bahrain Defense Forces announced that Iran continues its systematic hostile approach to its criminal attacks against civilian targets. And the military succeeded in intercepting and destroying a number of treacherous aerial attacks this morning. I was wondering, Tim, what that choice of targets on either side tells you about the. I suppose the tactical choices being made in this particular round of the war. The Iranians seem to be confining themselves to Gulf states, US Allies, the Americans focusing on the coast and interestingly moving towards the southeast.
- [09:11]
Tim Mack
I thought the coastal targeting has been and also the methodology by which they have targeted the coast. What we saw this week for the first time was the United States deployed these naval kamikaze drones, kind of taking a page out of the book of the Ukrainians and actually in some ways the Iranians themselves in deploying these drones that could be used on the water. This targeted things like radar stations along the coast and various ports and naval facilities that the IRGC uses. What this is showing, I think from a strategic level is the United States adapting in some ways to this conflict as it goes on. I think early on in the conflict it was focused on complex, expensive and big firepower to make its point. And it's adapting in a way because the Iranians have responded largely with relatively cheap drones, relatively smaller attacks. But in mass, the Americans adapting to this by shifting to a drone strategy or increasingly drone led strategy shows that they're learning some important lessons when it comes to military technology.
- [10:19]
Roland Oliphant
That's interesting. So you can see the Americans actually adapting as the war goes on and do you think improving their performance?
- [10:26]
Tim Mack
Well, there has been a sort of view in the United States for many years that the war in Ukraine and the technology being developed there, the Iranian drones that are being used in the Russo Ukrainian war, they're not really relevant to the United States because the United States would be so overpowered with its complex technology, its ability to project air power and things like that. I think the Iran war has kind of humbled some of those assertions. And the United States with its overwhelming resources, has needed to adapt and redistribute some of their efforts in terms of technology. The United States is now seeing some of the asymmetric advantages that can be brought about through drones. Particularly naval drones in this conflict, but also aerial drones, which I understand have been deployed in various ways during this conflict by the Americans as well.
- [11:16]
Roland Oliphant
Well, we're going to get to what's going on inside Iran, because I know you guys, you focus quite a lot on the war for ordinary people inside Iran. I want to get to that. Jackie, I just want to ask you. This is the latest from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. They said the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until the United States ends its acts of aggression. Their statement is the enemy should know that now that its maritime raiders have blocked the Indian Ocean route for oil and gas exports to the world, thereby endangering the interests of America's economic rivals, should also expect the closure of other oil and gas export routes that serve the interests of the United States and its allies. They did not elaborate on which routes could be affected. They said oil and gas exports from the region will either be available for everyone or for no one. I mean, that's not a new message, I suppose. But we've also seen these suggestions that the Babel Man Bab on the other side and the entrance to the Red Sea could come into play since the Saudis bombed Yemen. How badly do you think the Strait of Hormuz is blocked? I mean, what are the chances of it reopening? What do you make of that?
- [12:23]
Jackie Cole
Here's what we know. Yesterday there were reports that 17 vessels went through. That does not mean the strait is open whatsoever. I think what's important to be looking at right now as there's this whiplash between opening the strait, closing the straight, Trump saying that he'll charge, you know, 20% tolls to cross the Strait of Hormuz, then redacting that comment once the IMO deemed that completely illegal. This kind of whiplash is perhaps something we'll just have to watch unfold. But the Babel Mendeb is something that we need to turn our attention to, because if you have both of these critical shipping lanes potentially closed, and there have only been brief threats prior in the war that the Houthis would in some way try to close that strait. And right now, it's looking more likely than ever because of renewed fighting between Saudi and the Houthis in Yemen, if we see both of those passages closing, this could be more catastrophic for those, you name it, rising oil prices, fertilizer stuck in the strait. All of these resources that have, you know, caused this massive global catastrophe could seriously reach a complete halt if both coasts and both shipping lanes in both coasts are closed. And So I think the fighting between the Saudis and the Houthis is completely intertwined with what's happening the street. I think that the Houthis making moves to close the Bab El Mandeb would put pressure on both the Iranians and the Americans to make moves to reopen the street. And that's not a binary question. You know, it's not open or closed. There's even a concept of voluntary tolls that we could see introduced that haven't been yet. But, you know, there's. This is not a complete binary, and there might be some solutions that have not yet been brought to the table to getting some. Some movement through the Strait of Hormuz.
- [14:16]
Roland Oliphant
This idea of a toll of some sort. It's so. I don't know. People talk about the Overton Window, right? We used to be told that's absolutely unimaginable. It can't happen. It does feel like that's not going to go away.
- [14:28]
Tim Mack
The question is how seriously to take Donald Trump's pronouncements from day to day. You know, are we to take that as face value, or do we take that as a negotiating position? The United States, in order to charge a toll, would need to value everything that passes through. It would need to find a methodology to take payment. It would need to have a permanent military presence there. I think we sometimes do take Trump's pronouncement from day to day a little too seriously. I think the general attitude that Trump has had towards world affairs is that we haven't got the United States hasn't gotten enough money or extracted enough concessions for its role in the world. And the United States obviously, has been a guarantor of worldwide trade for much of the post World War II period. And what it's benefited from was the stability of the world in that time. And we've created a series of rules along with our allies, in order to ensure the free flow of goods around the world. Donald Trump does not fall in that tradition, does not particularly care about that tradition, and doesn't particularly understand or appreciate the advantages that the United States has gotten as a result of one of the world's most powerful countries. What he really cares about is dollars and cents. How many dollars can the United States extract from this particular issue? That said, once again, he's making these incredible pronouncements without the strategic leverage to back them. And that's the real problem, I think, as we assess how seriously to take what he says. Can he actually do it? Would it actually achieve his strategic ends? I Think those are good starting points from which to characterize how to approach Trump's latest posts.
- [16:10]
Roland Oliphant
I should probably make clear. I think you already mentioned it, but the idea of a 20% levy on traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has been shelved. Trump is, you know, he's not taking that seriously. I suppose what I was getting at though, Tim, was the idea that, okay, he may have used that as a kind of one of his characteristic kind of rhetorical little jabs, if you like. If the Iranians are really determined to do this, I wonder how, you know, you can get to a situation where it all goes back to normal. Because it seems to me the way things are going, I know this is a little bit like crystal ball gazing, that however this ends, there probably is going to be some kind of toll or fee or something in the Strait. I'm not sure how you, how you can stop the Iranians from imposing that if they're really determined to cause trouble, if you see what I mean.
- [16:58]
Tim Mack
Another way to look at this question is why didn't Iran in the past close the Strait of Hormuz? Why did they only do it in this particular case? Obviously there were other geopolitical crises, other points of tension in the past. And the reason was that before this ongoing war between the United States and Iran, there had always been a disincentive to do it. They were worried about the consequences. Turns out the consequences were less than they might have otherwise feared and that they are able to close the Strait of Hormuz and use that as a leverage point against the United States because the United States is either unable or unwilling to, to clear the Strait. And that is really where we have left off is that the fundamental calculation that Iran has with regards to the United States and American power has changed, which means we can't go back to the pre war calculation. The United States is simply unwilling to dedicate the amount of military force necessary to keep the straits open. And Iran has realized it's a little easier than it expected it would be to keep them closed at its whimsical. And that calculation I think is going to be very difficult to unwind.
- [18:05]
Roland Oliphant
We're going to take a short break now. When we come back, we'll be talking about what it's like for ordinary people inside Iran.
- [18:19]
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- [19:46]
Roland Oliphant
Welcome back. You're listening to Iran the latest with me, Roland Oliphant. Why don't we switch to talking about about you guys, really, if you don't mind. You are the founders of the Iran War Dispatches, which is a substack which kind of just reading it this morning kind of collates the latest news. But you also got really interesting kind of dispatches from Insider on. There's something on your homepage at the moment about Iranian children's writers and how they're affected by the war, which is really interesting stuff, the kind of thing you don't see elsewhere. How did this come about?
- [20:21]
Tim Mack
One of the things we wanted to do was bring a more empathetic view towards foreign journalism, trying to understand people through the who instead of the what. What we found was there was a fair amount of journalism in the world that described this happened today at this place, but it didn't really focus on the people. And so our journalism enterprise is really focused on human first reporting. So what we do as a means of storytelling is we focus on profiling an individual who went through something relevant to the news and use that as the vehicle to create a sense of empathy between the people who the news is happening to and us, the readers that are really, really far away from it. We've done that in Ukraine with a publication called the Counteroffensive, and that's what we've tried to Imitate with our Iran war coverage at Iran War Dispatches.
- [21:14]
Roland Oliphant
Maybe we should ask about who you guys are actually, Jackie, who are you and where do you come from and how did you end up doing this kind of work?
- [21:20]
Jackie Cole
Yeah, so like Tim said, this begun as a company, Tim in Ukraine, telling these human stories. I'll let him say more about that. I came on to kind of work on coverage of Taiwan. We have a small headquarters in Taipei telling similar human interest stories from rising tensions between China and Taiwan. And then as I came on, the Iran war started. And that night or the morning after, we sent myself and another reporter to Armenia, to the northern border of Iran, because we knew that we'd want to be telling these human focused stories and that amidst this kind of chaotic first week of who knows what's happening next and the unstable Internet connection in Iran, which turned into a full on blackout, we would need to be as on the ground as possible. And that border between Iran and Armenia sees a constant flow of people. It's an open border, meaning that the process to cross over is as simple as can be. And we thought that stationing ourselves in Yerevan and also on the border of Iran and Armenia would mean that we have access to people's voices, people's stories, people's experiences that we couldn't get otherwise. Because without going into Iran and without being able to call, text message inside the country, there was no other way to tell these human stories. So we based in Armenia and gathered a team of reporters to start telling these stories like the one you just described. So, you know, when this fighting resumed in the last week or so back in the US where I'm from, my, you know, my first instinct was to feel complete whiplash. You know, here we go again was my thought. And then my second thought was, how does this feel in Iran? What does it mean to be inside Iran and see this headline right now? And so that story was birthed out of the idea that we wanted to talk to someone who felt that kind of whiplash between ceasefire and fighting and ceasefire and fighting inside the country. Met this woman who kind of embodies hope and imagination. She's a children's author for a profession. She's imagining the future and talking to kids who look up to the future. And she herself was reckoning with this whiplashy idea of losing hope for peace anytime soon. And that's kind of the approach we take. And so we're still headquartered in Armenia and we still have our team working in Kyiv to tell similar stories around the world.
- [23:51]
Roland Oliphant
Tim Tell us about you. So this began with you setting up in Ukraine to cover that war. What's your background? How did you end up in Ukraine, and why did Iran after that interest you so much?
- [24:04]
Tim Mack
So my background is partially in journalism and partially in the military, so I'm a former U.S. army medic. But I spent much of my career covering national security for publications like Politico, the Daily Beast, and NPR. And in 2022, I was a correspondent for NPR, the American public Broadc, and they sent me to Kyiv in case a war might break out. And just by total chance, I landed on the night the invasion began. And long story short, I've been here ever since. I decided to start my own News publication in 2023. And I think the key when you're trying to start anything new is trying to understand, well, how do we differentiate ourselves? How can we create some value? How can we be different from the existing things that already are out there? And the counteroffensive. Our first publication on Ukraine was focused on telling human stories. What we found was a lot of people were just saying what is happening with no real consideration of who these things were happening to. So we did that and we expanded over time, as you can see, with our Iran coverage to different places in the world. We expanded to cover Taiwan, and we've covered stories from the Turkish Syrian border. We covered Hungary, we've covered Venezuela. And Iran is just one of the latest, latest areas where we've tried to bring this human first reporting approach.
- [25:25]
Roland Oliphant
Taki, you were one of the people who deployed to Armenia to do this. I'm wondering if you can tell us about the challenges of getting your stories out. You can't go in. Obviously, you're a US Citizen. I'm guessing you're not a native Persian speaker. So could you tell us a little bit about how you go about getting hold of these, these human stories that Tim described? Partly, I'm interested just for professional reasons because it's. It's been a real, you know, we'll. Those stories, I think, are something that all conflict journalists, foreign correspondents are looking to get. But usually it's because you're on the ground and you go and you meet people and, I don't know, you're running around in East Ukraine and you run into someone or so on. And it's been really difficult for us definitely just to be able to take that kind of pulse of society and ordinary people inside Iran. So how do you go about doing it?
- [26:24]
Jackie Cole
Yeah, I would say it's the ultimate reporting challenge. Which is also what makes it the most important reporting challenge. You're facing a few barriers. One is the barrier of not being on the ground. So like you said, I'm a U.S. citizen. Going into Iran was not an option. And being on the ground when you're telling human interest stories is a really important thing because getting a sense of the color and the energy of how people are feeling as the conflict unfolds is half the battle. So we had to get creative, based in Armenia, in understanding how to kind of paint that picture. One thing we did was we sent a reporter to Iraqi Kurdistan, to Erbil, to cover what was going on with Kurdish forces. There was a moment in this war where it felt like there might be a ground incursion from Iraqi Kurdistan into Iran. So we had a reporter there getting a sense of that feel and kind of reporting back to us to tell us what it looked like from that border. And then in Armenia, I think one of the. One of the most effective ways that we were able to understand the kind of vibe on the ground in Iran was on the border. So people between Armenia and Iran go back and forth daily. There are people who crossed the border into Iran to buy cigarettes and come back 45 minutes later to a small border town called Meri. So we were seeing a lot of people who interact with both countries and of course, therefore have family deeper inside Iran, when at the time, strikes were in Isfahan and Tehran. And painting color from the border was still a reporting challenge because we couldn't see with our own eyes. But the more we were able to build trust with the community there at the border and in Yerevan, the more you were able to kind of get people to sit down with us and say, hey, you know, here's how my family, who's sitting in Tehran is experiencing this war today. And from there is born a more colorful story that we can then send back to our English speaking audience and say, hey, are you curious what it feels like to be there? What it looks like and sounds like? So we were able to do that a, by positioning ourselves geographically in an effective way. You know, the Turkish border was more closed off, as is the Iraqi border. And so I think being in Armenia was actually an asset. I had a fellow reporter who spoke Persian with me, and I met, you know, along the reporting road, multiple Iranians living in Armenia who firmly believed in what we were doing as a publication, which was telling the world what it feels like to be inside the country right now. And they would just kind of come along with me, kind of like an ad hoc fixer.
- [29:18]
Roland Oliphant
Organically, I felt a kind of dearth of that kind of reporting in this world just because it's been so difficult to get inside the country and to have those immediate kind of encounters with people in those honest conversations. So I think that's really valuable. Could you, could you give us maybe a few examples of the most memorable stories you, you came across and you've published in the course of this?
- [29:40]
Jackie Cole
Yeah, so we had one reporter who was standing at the bus stop for the bus that came from Tehran into Yerevan. It's a bus that runs every day, comes into Yerevan around 3pm every day. And she would stand to get fresh accounts of, of what the Capitol felt like. And she was collecting stories from people who described the account of what it felt like to read the headline on their phones that there was the first ever ceasefire deal between the US and Iran of this war. Again, when you're reading this in the headlines in mainstream media, for me, the first question I ask is, what does this mean to someone inside the country? A ceasefire for us is a diplomatic term and a ceasefire for someone on the ground is a safety concern. And so that was one story we were able to collect perspectives from people in Lebanon, people in Israel, people in Iran, people in the Gulf of that very moment. They read the headline, there's a ceasefire and understand what that meant for them. Were they hopeful? Did that mean nothing to them? Were those simple diplomatic terms? Or did that feel like life or death? That was a really interesting story. We also met a teacher in Iran who described what it feels like to teach young students through a war that she can't quite describe or justify. So what does it look like to sit in a classroom and have, you know, a seven year old child say what? Why are there bombs? Why was school canceled yesterday? And balance both the regulation that you're facing from the Iranian government. She didn't want to get in trouble for saying anything that, you know, was in any way full of dissent. But she also wanted to explain to these kids why they were feeling so, so shaken and unsafe. So I think those stories again, of the ways in which war impacts people that we don't perhaps consider what were the most impactful ones.
- [31:39]
Roland Oliphant
I was wondering in the course of your reporting, Tim, what the people you've spoken to have said about that climate of fear inside the country. Because while this whole war has been going on, there has still been the shadow of the, of that vast protest movement in December and then the very bloody crackdown that followed. What have your contacts in Iran been saying about that kind of thing.
- [32:07]
Tim Mack
It seems like a distant memory now, but it's worth reminding that the strikes that the United States originally launched on Iran was in part intended to drive regime change and support anti ayatollah, anti regime protesters. The tragedy of that all is that by the time these strikes were launched, many of the most prominent protesters were already laying dead. And the fact that we haven't seen renewed protesters is very likely a reflection of the fact that the leadership and those who have been killed were the bravest among those who protested. And that really is a terrible consequence of the last six or seven months. Of course, the blame lies with the regime, but you could also say that the United States acted too late to achieve that particular objective. And among the other failed objectives of the war, this one lays in there as a pretty central deficiency.
- [33:12]
Jackie Cole
If I can add a little bit about what we're hearing from. So the people we're in contact with in Iran, there is this question, has there been any sort of result in a progress towards regime change or a softening of the grip that the Iranian regime has over its country? What I'm hearing from people is quite the opposite. I'm hearing that under this threat, this aerial threat, and also this diplomatic threat that the IRGC and the besieged Melissas are only doubling down. I was speaking to someone recently who said that at night when you open your windows in Tehran, you can hear besieged members kind of shouting and chanting and creating this culture of intimidation that actually wasn't so prominent pre war. I heard someone say, you know, there are multiple households with a little bit of extra food, water, supplies that are afraid to distribute those food, waters and supplies because there's such a strong besiege presence. And then I also heard someone recently contact me and say that there was a man selling replicas of Iranian style shahid drones for home decor. And not necessarily as a complete and utter signal to us that that's the new normal. Of course, this was one source seeing one thing, but it's an interesting concept to try to think about how militarized society is becoming from this and whether or not this attempt at bombing out the Ayatollah and trying to reconfigure the structure of the regime is actually having the opposite effect. There are plenty of reports that the regime is now more hardline than ever. And what I'm hearing from sources inside Iran reflects that.
- [34:59]
Roland Oliphant
I'm going to adopt something from our sister podcast, Ukraine, the latest, and ask if you have any final thoughts. You'd like to leave us with maybe something I haven't mentioned or asked you about. Tim, do you want to go first?
- [35:11]
Tim Mack
I think just thinking about the way we process news as not just a collection of events that occur far away, but the but trying to look for news that illustrates to us who, who is actually being affected by this, who are the people involved in it? Often when we talk about Ukraine or we talk about Iran, we see these figures, 16 killed overnight, 46 wounded, or whatever else. It's worth pursuing sources that dig a little bit deeper and try to explain to us what the ground truth is and show us the humanity involved. It brings us closer to the news at hand and it gives us a more comprehensive view of the world, which I think is really important as we try to make decisions about what kind of governments our governments ought to be.
- [35:58]
Jackie Cole
Jackie I think one thing about the war in Iran that cannot be overstated, especially from a human interest perspective, is the impact of the Internet blackout on the country. It's slowly being restored. But I keep coming back to this idea, especially now being in Ukraine, of how critical Internet can be to trying to understand security risks, to understand the news, the status of the war, your family members and their safety. And, and I think that when I think of what distinguishes the war in Iran from a human perspective, the perspective of people living through it, the Internet is the first thing that comes to mind. I think. I think that cannot be overstated. You know, as a reporter, I would send hundreds of messages a day through encrypted messaging apps to people inside Iran to try to reach them. And 99% had an undelivered signal, meaning they weren't even reaching the country. So I think that is one of the most critical human parts of this war.
- [36:53]
Roland Oliphant
Jackie Cohen, Tim Mack, founders of the Iran or Dispatch thank you so much for joining us on Iran the Latest that's all for today's episode I or Venetia or Sophia, I'm not quite sure who will be back in the chair tomorrow. Until then, that was around the latest Goodbye.
- [37:19]
Podcast Narrator
Iran the Latest is an original podcast from the Telegraph created by David Knowles and hosted by me, Roland Oliphant and Venecia Rainey. If you appreciate this podcast, please consider following around the latest in your preferred podcast app. And if you have a moment, leave a review as it helps others find the show. For more from our foreign correspondents on the ground, sign up to our new daily newsletter, Cables via our website or listen to our sister podcast, Ukraine the Latest we are still on the same email address battlelinestelegraph.co.uk or you can contact us on X. You can find our handles in the show. Notes the producer is Peter Shevelin. The executive producers are Venetia Rainey and Louisa Wells.
- [38:05]
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- [38:31]
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