Eli Lake and Haviv Rettig Gur on Why Iran's Regime Is Hard to Kill

About this episode

Eli Lake discusses with Haviv Rettig Gur the complexities of the Iranian regime and its ideological foundations amidst the ongoing Iran war.

What does it actually take to break a regime built on martyrdom? Eli Lake sits down with Haviv Rettig Gur — host of Ask Haviv Anything and one of the deepest thinkers on the Middle East — to assess week five of the Iran war. They trace the ideological DNA of Iran’'s Islamic Republic from the Algerian National Liberation Front to Frantz Fanon to Ali Shariati, and explain why this is a regime designed to treat its own destruction as a form of victory. Plus: what a color revolution in Tehran could mean for Sunni Islamism, Hamas, and the future of the Palestinian question. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People in this episode

Host: Eli Lake

Guest: Haviv Rettig Gur

Topics covered

• Iran war
• regime analysis
• martyrdom
• Middle East
• color revolution
• Sunni Islamism
• Palestinian question

Keywords

• Iran
• regime
• martyrdom
• Middle East
• color revolution
• Hamas
• Palestinian

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Islamic Republic, Algerian National Liberation Front

Places: Tehran, Iran, Palestinian

More episodes of Breaking History

• Who Owns the Declaration of Independence? · May 27, 2026 · 1h 18m
• A New Series From The Free Press | The Lindbergh Conspiracies · May 19, 2026 · 43 min
• What the Founders Really Meant to Say · May 13, 2026 · 57 min
• Roald Dahl: Genius and Bigot · May 7, 2026 · 49 min
• Eli Lake and David Rose: The UK Censorship Machine Eats Itself · May 1, 2026 · 52 min
• Is This War Justified? Eli Lake Debates Iran with Robert Wright · April 16, 2026 · 1h 56m