{"podcast":{"title":"Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté","slug":"useful-idiots-with-katie-halper-and-aaron-mat-1429483","podcast_index_feed_id":1429483,"rss_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/304318.rss","website_url":"https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/podcast","image_url":"https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/304318/bd4899cbc23ee1656dd8a30e3c5d8fd8.jpg","author":"Katie Halper and Aaron Maté","episode_count":497,"summary":"Useful Idiots with Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/useful-idiots-with-katie-halper-and-aaron-mat-1429483"},"episode":{"title":"America’s “Strategic WEAKNESS” in Iran w/ Ex-State Dept Official Alan Eyre and Iranian Journalist Séamus Malekafzali","slug":"america-s-strategic-weakness-in-iran-w-ex-state-dept-official-alan-eyre-and-iranian-journalist-s-amus-malekafzali","published_at":"2026-04-10T16:15:18+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/useful-idiots-with-katie-halper-and-aaron-mat-1429483/america-s-strategic-weakness-in-iran-w-ex-state-dept-official-alan-eyre-and-iranian-journalist-s-amus-malekafzali","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/useful-idiots-with-katie-halper-and-aaron-mat-1429483","url":"https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/americas-strategic-weakness-in-iran","audio_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/193802014/53b31534d4549577ef7ce95670476d92.mp3","summary":"This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here: This week, after Trump threatened to wipe out Iran’s civilization, he backed down and announced that he was instead accepting a two-week ceasefire with Iran. Israel responded to the ceasefire announcement by going on a rampage in Lebanon, killing well over 200 people, attacking civilian targets, including apartment buildings inside Beirut. When Iran claimed that the U.S. is in violation of the ceasefire because of Israel’s continued attacks on Lebanon, Vice President J.D. Vance, touted by corporate media as a “skeptic” of Trump’s war, gave this response: “There’s a lot of bad faith negotiation going on. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn’t. We never indicated that was going to be the case. What we said is that the Israelis offered, frankly, to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon. Look, if Iran wants to let this negotiation fall apart, that’s ultimately their choice. We think that would be dumb.” It’s just not factually true that Lebanon was never part of the ceasefire: Pakistan, the government that brokered the ceasefire, said explicitly that the ceasefire applies “everywhere including Lebanon.” But Vance is pretending that Lebanon wasn’t included and then scolding Iran for daring to want to spare Lebanon from relentless Israeli attacks. So with Vance now joining Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff in negotiations, what is the expectation for this team to be able to produce diplomacy? To analyze this, plus why Iran is emerging from these ceasefire talks with “a superior strategic position” while the United States “is greatly weakened from a strategic…","meta_description":"This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2726,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/useful-idiots-with-katie-halper-and-aaron-mat-1429483/episodes/america-s-strategic-weakness-in-iran-w-ex-state-dept-official-alan-eyre-and-iranian-journalist-s-amus-malekafzali/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/useful-idiots-with-katie-halper-and-aaron-mat-1429483/america-s-strategic-weakness-in-iran-w-ex-state-dept-official-alan-eyre-and-iranian-journalist-s-amus-malekafzali.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}