# Iran’s hardliners will not listen to anyone - even China’s Xi Jinping Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/iran-the-latest-6656846/iran-s-hardliners-will-not-listen-to-anyone-even-china-s-xi-jinping Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/iran-the-latest-6656846/iran-s-hardliners-will-not-listen-to-anyone-even-china-s-xi-jinping.md Podcast: [Iran: The Latest](https://stenobird.com/podcast/iran-the-latest-6656846) Published: 2026-05-13T16:14:12+00:00 Episode link: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/05/13/irans-hardliners-will-not-listen-to-anyone/ Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/6583019ebbd71a00175001c8/e/6a04a02906eee5b01c8de664/media.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/iran-the-latest-6656846/episodes/iran-s-hardliners-will-not-listen-to-anyone-even-china-s-xi-jinping Duration seconds: 1977 ## Resource Weeks of American and Israeli airstrikes inflicted grievous losses on Iran’s military. Or so we thought.  Now, US intelligence assessments suggest that Iran retains 70 percent of the missiles and launch vehicles it had before the war - including most of the sites threatening the Strait of Hormuz.  Holly Dagres joins Roland Oliphant and Sophia Yan to unpack the implications. She also explains why Iran’s hardliners are unlikely to listen to China’s leader Xi Jinping, have stepped up execution of opponents and alleged spies at home, and are nose-diving the economy with a crippling internet black out. This is the latest from Donald Trump’s war against Iran – which will overshadow his summit later this week with Xi. Highlights  Iran retains 70 percent of its missile arsenal Why Tehran's hardliners will resist pressure from China CONTRIBUTORS: Roland Oliphant, co-host and chief foreign affairs analyst @RolandOliphant Sophia Yan, senior foreign correspondent, @sophia_yan  Holly Dagres, Washington Institute, @hdagres Producer: Peter Shevlin Executive Producers: Venetia Rainey & Louisa Wells ► Sign up to our most popular newsletter, From the Editor. Look forward to receiving free-thinking comment and the day's biggest stories, every morning. telegraph.co.uk/fromtheeditor ► EMAIL US: Contact the team on battlelines@telegraph.co.uk  ► GET THE LATEST HEADLINES: Find all our latest Iran coverage here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/iran-war/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/iran-the-latest-6656846/episodes/iran-s-hardliners-will-not-listen-to-anyone-even-china-s-xi-jinping/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/iran-the-latest-6656846/iran-s-hardliners-will-not-listen-to-anyone-even-china-s-xi-jinping.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.