3 key moments that led to the U.S.-Iran war

Military confrontations, early-morning attacks, and digital warfare: the story of Iran and the U.S. from the 1979 Iranian revolution to the fraught moment we're in today. This episode originally ran in 2019 as Rules of Engagement . You can find more of Throughline's coverage into the origins of the conflict in the Middle East here . Guests: Karim Sadjadpour , senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Michael Eisenstadt , director of the Washington Institute's military and security studies program Kim Zetter , writer for WIRED magazine and author of Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free,

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3 key moments that led to the U.S.-Iran war is an episode from Throughline by NPR.

This episode is 48:06 long.

This episode was published on Mar 12, 2026.

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