Iran: The Latest

Does the US war with Iran make strategic sense? No, says Britain’s foremost military expert and strategist, Sir Lawrence Freedman. Talking to Roland Oliphant and Venetia Rainey on The Telegraph’s Iran: The Latest podcast, Sir Lawrence shares his damning verdict of Donald Trump’s military operation against the Iranian regime: no proper preparation and no thinking through the risks. They also discus...

How do Iranians inside Iran feel about Trump’s war? With no independent reporting allowed, an internet blackout in place and harsh punishments for anyone who speaks out against the regime, it’s hard to tell. But there are some voices getting out - and some are happy about the American-Israeli attack. Sahar Zand, an Iranian-British investigative journalist based in London, shares messages from Iran...

Is this what the start of World War Three looks like? On the 11th day of the US-Israeli war with Iran, Roland looks at how the conflict is broadening well beyond Iran’s borders. President Donald Trump has hinted the war is nearly over, but ACLED CEO Clionadh Raleigh says it is dangerously close to dragging in Russia and China given they have already openly backed Iran. She also talks through what...

Could Iran’s new leader be worse than the old one? On the 10th day of the US-Israeli war with Iran, Roland looks at why IRGC-favourite Mojtaba Khamenei has been chosen as the new supreme leader to take over from his assassinated father and what it means for the regime. Plus, Venetia gets a view from the Gulf about the growing oil crisis, fears over dwindling interceptor missile stocks and how the...

It’s the seventh day of the US-Israeli war with Iran and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has said America is about to dramatically increase the amount of firepower over the country as the military campaign moves into the next phase. On today’s episode, Venetia takes a step back and looks at what has been achieved so far over one week of war. She is joined by Col. Simon Diggins, a former British Army...

On the sixth day of the US-Israeli war with Iran, the Strait of Hormuz is remains effectively closed to shipping, despite the US Navy crippling Iran’s surface fleet - including by torpedoing a Frigate off Sri Lanka.  On today’s episode of Iran: the Latest, Roland Oliphant speaks to former Royal Navy commander Tom Sharpe about how Western militaries have prepared for years for a big war with I...

In the wake of an attack on a British military base in Cyprus, the UK has said it will send an extra warship to the region. Does this make Britain militarily involved in America and Israel’s war against Iran? Or was that already true after Prime Minister Keir Starmer allowed Donald Trump to use British bases? Venetia and Roland discuss Europe’s growing involvement in the conflict and the countries...

Battle Lines is now Iran: The Latest! Roland and Venetia are going to be covering the new conflict every day for the weeks to come, bringing you the best of The Telegraph’s reporting from around the world and exclusive interviews with world-class experts in military strategy, diplomacy, and the Middle East. On today’s episode, Venetia and Roland look at America’s devastating attacks on Iran’s offi...

Iran's leader Ayatollah Khamenei was killed in an Israeli and US strike on Saturday morning, kicking off a major war that has since expanded to the entire Middle East. On day three of the conflict, Venetia and Roland run through the big updates, including the UK’s involvement, the ongoing death toll and how Iran is striking back on key targets in the region.  They also talk to former Israeli...

The US and Israel have launched what President Donald Trump has described as "major combat operations" to try to bring about the end of the Iranian regime. In this bonus episode, Roland and Venetia look at what we know so far - from Trump’s speech to strikes across the Middle East - and what might happen next, while Henry Bodkin, The Telegraph’s Jerusalem correspondent, reports from on the ground...

For sixty years Washington and Havana have been having a geopolitical tango fuelled by obsession and ideology. The island nation of Cuba has been a socialist splinter in the finger of the Florida coastline, its regime infecting the region.  Now, with the toppling of Nicolás Maduro and Venezuelan oil tightly controlled by the US, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel could be next. To get into the...

Drugs and gangs have created an explosion in HIV cases in Fiji. This week on Battle Lines: Global Health Security, Arthur Scott-Geddes is joined by Sarah Newey, The Telegraph’s correspondent in Bangkok who recently travelled to Fiji, and Dr Jason Mitchell, the head of the country’s HIV task force. On the archipelago known as the gateway to the Pacific, Chinese triads, Mexican cartels, and Australi...

The British Indian Ocean Territory, AKA the Chagos Islands is home to the American super-base of Diego Garcia. Located on the largest island in the archipelago and home to the joint UK/US military base since the 1970s. The Chagos handover to Mauritius has been controversial from the outset and shifting signals from Donald Trump have left the Starmer government open to a political backlash. Has the...

The drumbeat of war in the Middle East is getting louder - and once again it’s Iran in America’s crosshairs. A second round of talks over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme ended this week without a deal. In the last few days, dozens of American fighter jets and refuelling tankers have joined the US's two carrier strike groups in the region. This is now the largest American military bui...

Two years ago, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in a Siberian penal colony. There was an outcry and many suspected foul play, but nothing could be proved.  That is until last weekend, when five European countries including the UK announced that they had made a startling discovery: Navalny had been killed with a rare frog poison. How was the poison was identified, how were the sam...

North Korea’s dynasty dictatorship has taken on a new leather clad, second-in-command. Reports from South Korea have suggested that Kim Jong Un’s daughter Kim Ju-ae is now the heir apparent in the totalitarian state. Could she one day be the youngest person to command a nuclear arsenal? Roland chats to The Telegraph’s Lily Shanagher and from the University of Oxford, North Korea watcher, Dr Edward...

A year ago, JD Vance gave an explosive speech at the Munich Security Conference. It marked a fundamental shift in the relationship between the US and its European allies that have since been cemented through tariff wars, a new National Security Strategy and threats to take Greenland.   So has Europe risen to the challenge laid down by Donald Trump's administration and started to take car...

Nearly a year after Donald Trump shuttered USAID, the world is still reckoning with the consequences. But what really happened next? Venetia Rainey examines the fallout and what it means for global health, security, and stability. Joined by Global Health Security Editor, Paul Nuki, she explores how the abrupt withdrawal of America’s largest aid agency sent shockwaves through the global aid system,...

Donald Trump has moved the war for critical minerals from the margins of policy to the heart of great power rivalry. In this episode of Battle Lines, we look at Project Vault, America's bid to take back control of the critical minerals and rare earths supply chain from China.  This bid to build a vast new stockpile and industrial strategy was unveiled at the inaugural US Critical Minerals Min...

Was Peter Mandelson's appointment as UK ambassador to the US a national security risk? Should the US and UK bomb Iran to spark regime change? Will Nato survive Trump? And how should European countries deal with the threat of China? British shadow defence secretary and former procurement minister James Cartlidge joins Roland and Venetia to discuss the biggest news stories in British and global defe...

This week, the New START treaty expires, ending the last remaining major nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia. With no binding limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals and China rapidly expanding its own, many fear the start of a new and dangerous era of proliferation. On this episode of Battle Lines: Global Health Security, Arthur Scott-Geddes and Sophie O...

The United States appeared poised for a major military confrontation with Iran after Donald Trump ordered a powerful naval force into the region in response to the killing of thousands of Iranian protesters.  The expected strikes never came. Instead, Washington has shifted towards using military pressure as leverage for a renewed nuclear deal. Does this mark a genuine de-escalation? Or is it...

Xi Jinping is purging again. Generals once seen as untouchable are gone, rivals erased, loyalty enforced through fear. Is this the move of a leader under real threat or the paranoia of a man who has ruled too long and trusts no one? To find out more, Venetia talks to Oriana Skylar Mastro, director of the Indo-Pacific Policy Lab at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International St...

Gaza has entered the next phase of the peace process but is the ceasefire actually bringing peace? This week, Venetia Rainey and Arthur Scott-Geddes speak to Tess Ingram, UNICEF spokesperson who has just returned from four months on the ground. She outlines the humanitarian situation following the ceasefire, from winter shelters and malnutrition to unexploded ordnance, orphaned children, and the d...

For more than a decade, Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria were America's most trusted ally, spearheading the war against Isis, taking responsibility for guarding thousands of jihadi prisoners of war, and in the process carving out an autonomous statelet that seemed poised to realise the dream of Kurdish independence. Over the past few weeks, that dream as has been crushed. In a sudden offensive...