Vali Nasr on Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History

Princeton UP Ideas Podcast | 25 June 2025 | 0h 53m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify

Interview with Vali Nasr about his book Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History. Traces the roots of Iran’s strategic outlook to its experiences over the past four decades of war with Iraq in the 1980s and the subsequent American containment of Iran, invasion of Iraq in 2003, and posture toward Iran thereafter. Explains that rather than being driven by revolutionary values or theocratic government, those values, the theocracy and foreign policy serve its perceived security interests.