Scott Horton, Zulfiqar Ali: Could the Iran War Be a Turning Point for US Power?

by Transition Protocol [6-20-2026].

Did Iran actually come out of the 2026 war stronger? In this source-driven conversation, foreign-policy analyst and author Scott Horton (Enough Already, Provoked, Fool's Errand) argues that the US-Israeli war on Iran ended far closer to a strategic defeat for Washington than the official story suggests — and that the ceasefire memorandum of understanding left America with little more than the status quo.

Horton walks through why he believes the nuclear pretext never held up, how Iran's missile force survived largely intact, the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the harder-line succession that followed, the credibility of US security guarantees across the Gulf and Asia, and the 25-year arc of US policy toward Iran, Iraq, and Syria that he argues repeatedly backfired. He also makes his broader case about the costs of the American empire.

Transition Protocol is a source-driven geopolitical and economic analysis platform focused on evidence-based reporting, expert interviews, and high-signal breakdowns of global power shifts. Where a claim is developing or contested, we say so on screen. Subscribe for weekly long-form conversations on the changing world order.

00:00 Cold Open: Did Iran Win the 2026 War?
02:18 The Neocon Doctrine and Israel's Strategic Aims
09:31 How Iraq and Syria Kept Empowering Iran
17:29 Yemen and the Pattern of Backfires
19:14 The Nuclear Pretext and the Moving Red Line
24:20 The Fuel Cycle and Iran's Latent Deterrent
26:45 The Strikes on Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan
32:24 How Trump Was 'Dog-Walked' Into the War
41:32 Iran's Missile Force and the Failed War Aims
46:09 The Ceasefire MOU: What the US Actually Got
54:58 America's Called Bluff Across the Region
1:01:06 Closing: The Case for Ending the Empire