The Chris Hedges Report

The global economic impacts of the American-Israeli war on Iran are already being felt, particularly in Asia, through shortages of fuel and other necessities, the closure of factories and the loss of jobs. We are now on a path heading for a global recession, or even worse, a global depression. To sort out what potentially lies ahead and the likelihood of preventing the worst outcomes, Chris Hedges speaks with economist Richard D. Wolff, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Wolff begins the interview by discussing the weaknesses of the capitalist economic system. Since the 1970s, corporations have been moving production to areas of the world where they can maximize profits. This has created fragile supply chains that are vulnerable to changes in the availability of energy and the fallout of political turmoil.

Research demonstrates that capitalist systems result in cyclical downturns every four to seven years. The last economic crisis was five to six years ago, so we may very well be on the edge of another one. Wolff reports that it is too early to determine if that will result in inflation, stagflation or deflation. For the United States, commitments to greater military spending, a historically high debt of $40 trillion and a declining credit rating will force the government to borrow money at higher interest rates, adding to the burden of an already financially stressed population.

Wolff states, “We are living through the end of the empire and that end has been accelerated and brought closer by everything going on in the Middle East.” The United States faces a critical decision. If it chooses to escalate the war on Iran, the risk of a global depression rises. The future appears to be grim. At this time, there is an absence of a functioning international mechanism through which countries can solve the current crises cooperatively. For the United States, there is also denial about the state of our falling empire. Wolff concludes: “It’s not a question of maintaining your dominance. That’s gone. It’s a question of working things out. Our leaders don’t think or talk like that.”

The United States, in its recent war on Iran, has completely misread the Iranian people and failed to recognize the deep revolutionary spirit that pervades Iranian culture. Rather than inciting Iranian people against their government, the US-Israeli war on Iran has united the population. Rather than promoting democracy in Iran and empowering the people, US economic punishment and aggression have accomplished the opposite and have made life more difficult for most Iranians. Like Cuba, Iran is being targeted because it will not relinquish its sovereignty. As Chris Hedges explains, Iran is being punished for “its refusal to become a client state aligned with American interests in the region.”

In this episode, Hedges speaks with Professor Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, the author of “The Long War on Iran: New Events, Old Questions” (OR Books, January 2026). Ghamari is currently a visiting scholar at the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York. In his book, Ghamari tackles the myths perpetuated by the United States to demonize Iran in order to justify the imposition of severe sanctions and to go to war on Iran twice in less than one year. He discusses the many reasons why the Islamic Republic does not trust the United States to negotiate in good faith.

Year zero in the current struggle, Ghamari explains, was 1953 when the United States and the United Kingdom conducted a successful coup of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. This led to the Iranian Revolution in 1979, described by Ghamari as “the largest, most populous revolution in world history [that] defeated the fifth largest military in the world at the time.” Following that, events such as the Eight Year War, in which the United States provided the tools for chemical warfare on Iranians by Iraq, and the betrayal of Iran by President Bush, calling it part of the Axis of Evil despite Iran playing an instrumental role with the US in defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan, have created the conditions for “ the transfer of collective revolutionary consciousness generation after generation.”

Ghamari discusses Iran’s support for the Axis of Resistance as a way to create a “Ring of Fire” around it, opportunities to struggle against US and Israeli imperialism outside of Iran’s borders with the hope of avoiding a war at home. He states that initially Iranians opposed the use of resources to support Palestinians, Hezbollah and the defense of Syria, but now they understand the utility. Iranians see themselves in these struggles, and that is why a popular movement has taken the streets night after night against US attacks.

The outcome of the current conflict is uncertain, but Ghamari theorizes, and Hedges agrees, that Iran has a strong hand to play and the best result would be a return to a lifting of the economic sanctions in return for limits on Iran’s nuclear enrichment efforts, as was agreed in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015. The wildcards are the United States and Israel, who may be unwilling to compromise and may resort to dropping nuclear bombs in desperation.

At the last minute, Iran agreed on Monday to participate in negotiations with the United States in Islamabad, Pakistan. The fragile ceasefire agreement between the two countries ends on Wednesday. Following the US attack on and seizure of an Iranian cargo ship in the Sea of Oman on Saturday, and contradictory tweets by President Trump in recent days, Iran was understandably hesitant to engage in further discussions with the US. There are additional obstacles to a successful resolution of the US-Israeli war on Iran to consider.

To dissect the challenges involved in negotiating peace and the potential ramifications of a resumption of the war, Chris Hedges speaks with Professor John Mearsheimer. A fundamental difficulty is whether the United States realizes that Iran has the upper hand in this conflict. Mearsheimer explains that if the US chooses to escalate the situation, this would be to Iran’s advantage as they have the capacity to inflict greater harm on the global economy beyond restricting passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which has already created shortages in critical materials needed for manufacturing and agriculture.

The United States will have to make compromises in its demands to reach an agreement with Iran, something the US has so far been unwilling to do. Mearsheimer adds that the Trump administration must balance both the interests of Israel and its powerful lobby in the US, which “has no interest in settling this war,” and the domestic impacts of a global recession if the war continues that could hurt Trump in the midterms. If the administration succeeds in extending a ceasefire, Mearsheimer points out that the Israel lobby “will be working overtime not to make that framework morph into a peaceful agreement.”

The stakes are high and neither Mearsheimer or Hedges are optimistic that the United States has the capacity to navigate the complicated and competing challenges involved in reaching a lasting resolution. Mearsheimer summarizes the situation by stating, “The only thing I can say with a high degree of certainty is it looks like one giant mess that’s going to lead to endless trouble.”

Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of the antiwar organization CODEPINK, speaks with Chris Hedges about her recent visit to Cuba as part of one of the many humanitarian delegations that have visited the island in response to the severe economic blockade imposed by the Trump administration. Benjamin describes the current situation as “dire”, the worst she has experienced in her 50 years of solidarity work with Cuba, referring to the escalation of the blockade as a “medieval siege.”

The fuel shortages have had deadly impacts, imposing nationwide power outages. Sanctions and the blockade have created shortages of food, medicine and other necessities. Benjamin recounts, “People can’t go to work because the buses aren’t working or if they got to work, there’s no electricity or no materials.” She says that doctors and teachers are leaving the country because their salaries are too low to survive.

The U.S. media blame the hardships in Cuba on its communist government, but Benjamin shares the advancements that have been made since the Revolution, despite enduring more than sixty years of U.S.-imposed sanctions. A poor country of ten million, Cuba created a once-enviable universal healthcare system and an excellent education system that is free to residents. Now, many of those gains, such as reductions in infant mortality and improvements in life expectancy, are deteriorating under the boot of American imperialism.

Delegations have traveled to Cuba from all over the world this year to bring solar panels, medicines and other necessities. Palestinians participated in the delegation that Benjamin helped to organize, and they witnessed many similarities between Cuba and Gaza. In addition to the shortages, another similarity is the growing power of the Cuban-American lobby that supports the blockade, which is modeled on the Israeli-American lobby, AIPAC.

Despite this, the situation in Cuba is so severe that even many members of Congress can no longer deny the cruelty of the situation. There are two new pieces of legislation in Congress that CODEPINK and other Cuba solidarity organizations support. Benjamin urges people to take action in any way that they can because she believes Cubans will not be able to endure the hardships of the blockade for much longer.