Breaking History

David Rose is the director of policy and research at the Free Speech Union (FSU), a UK-based nonpartisan organization that campaigns for freedom of speech. The FSU will publish a new report examining allegations tied to Labour Together, the political network linked to Keir Starmer. David joins Eli Lake to explain how his investigation describes a murky ecosystem involving claims of journalists labeled as Russian assets, the circulation of private intelligence-style dossiers, and the growing overlap between political advocacy and “disinformation” or “digital hate” laws in the UK. Our special episode on the UK being a “censor’s paradise” is here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eli Lake joins Robert Wright over at his podcast NonZero, which offers “conversations with a series of people who have nothing in common except that program host Robert Wright is curious about what they’re thinking” . Robert views the U.S-Israel military campaign against Iran as a serious mistake and a clear violation of international law. Eli sees it as a necessary—if legally awkward—response to decades of Iranian aggression and destabilization. Who wins? You’ll have to listen to decide for yourself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Arash Azizi lived through the democracy movement in Iran before he wrote about it. Now a historian at Yale, he joins Eli Lake to trace the arc from former president Mohammad Khatami’s unlikely rise to the crushed hopes of the Green Movement—and what it tells us about whether reform from within the Islamic Republic was ever really possible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

What drives someone from an ordinary background into extremism? In this Breaking History special, journalist Jay Solomon joins Eli Lake to discuss his investigation into American extremist Calla Walsh.  But this isn’t an isolated story. It echoes a pattern we’ve seen before. Following the interview, we revisit our episode on “middle-class kids breaking bad,” exploring how individuals from stable, even privileged backgrounds have repeatedly been drawn into violent or extremist movements. We explore the tale of the Red Army Faction and how Ulrike Meinhof went from reporter to terrorist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week I joined The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan, who has generously agreed to let us share the conversation here. Andrew and I go way back, and few people are as willing as he is to really go toe-to-toe over our disagreements—especially on Israel and America’s role in the world. In our discussion, we cover a broad range of history and politics: from the Iran-Contra affair to the Oslo Accords, and the Second Intifada to Iraq, Iran, Hamas, and the current war in Gaza—along with my bar mitzvah speech about nuclear proliferation and early Zionist influences. Of course we bring it to the present day, debating the political, strategic, and moral stakes shaping Washington’s arguments about the war in Iran today.  Take a listen, and you can find Andrew’s Substack here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Breaking History producer Poppy Damon sits down with Guardian security correspondent Jason Burke to unpack his new book, ⁠The Revolutionists⁠, a sweeping history of the 1970s wave of extremism that transformed global politics. From plane hijackings to hostage crises, Burke traces the radical figures and world leaders who shaped the modern age of terror. What does the 1970s tell us about 2026? Go to https://surfshark.com/elideal or use code ELIDEAL at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As Iran’s regime faces mounting internal pressure, one name keeps resurfacing: Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the last shah. But is he a viable future leader, or simply the most recognizable symbol of a free Iran? In this conversation, host Eli Lake and producer Poppy Damon unpack the strange political moment Pahlavi finds himself in—popular with many Iranians, yet viewed skeptically by parts of the opposition and treated cautiously by Washington. Can he unite the stakeholders to bring about democracy? Or is he likely to get in the way of a future without monarchs? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our last episode, we traced the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty and the forces building toward Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. In Part 2, we turn to the man who brought that monarchy to an end: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. From exile in a quiet French chateau, Khomeini launched a revolution that shattered 2,500 years of Persian monarchy. But he didn’t do it alone. Liberals and leftists, both inside Iran and across the West, played a crucial role in legitimizing his cause, a dynamic that feels familiar today. This is the story of the first Red-Green Alliance, a tactical partnership between Islamists and the progressive left, and the cost of that alliance once power changed hands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Breaking History dives into the paradox at the heart of modern Iran: How a nation born in revolt, from the tobacco protests of the 1890s to the 1979 Revolution, has time and again empowered autocrats in the name of democracy. This week we trace the cycles of reform and repression that still shape Iran today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices