# Wars of Choice Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-commentary-magazine-podcast-765483/wars-of-choice Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-commentary-magazine-podcast-765483/wars-of-choice.md Podcast: [The Commentary Magazine Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-commentary-magazine-podcast-765483) Published: 2026-05-08T15:20:00+00:00 Episode link: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/prfx.byspotify.com/e/mgln.ai/e/796/claritaspod.com/measure/traffic.megaphone.fm/GEMINIMEDIA1873659667.mp3?updated=1778253693 Audio file: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/prfx.byspotify.com/e/mgln.ai/e/796/claritaspod.com/measure/traffic.megaphone.fm/GEMINIMEDIA1873659667.mp3?updated=1778253693 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-commentary-magazine-podcast-765483/episodes/wars-of-choice Duration seconds: 4194 ## Resource It's Friday, and we still don't understand exactly what is going on with Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, so instead we discuss unfair comparisons between this conflict and Putin's war in Ukraine, the historical context of so-called "wars of choice," the strange absences from the jacket of Rachel Goldberg-Polin's book, and the Pulitzer prize awarded to photographs from a since-retracted New York Times story. Plus, Seth recommends Ulrich Boschwitz's The Passenger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-commentary-magazine-podcast-765483/episodes/wars-of-choice/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-commentary-magazine-podcast-765483/wars-of-choice.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.