Iran's Rise and Fall: What History Actually Shows

The Ben Shapiro Show episode 'Iran's Rise and Fall: What History Actually Shows' delivers a forceful historical and geopolitical critique of Iran's relationship with the United States since 1953. Shapiro dismantles the narrative that U.S. intervention—particularly the 1953 CIA-backed overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh—was the root cause of Iran's hostility. Instead, he argues that Mossadegh was a radical, anti-Western leader who nationalized oil, defied the constitution, and flirted with Soviet influence, making his removal by the Shah (with U.S. support) a constitutional and strategic necessity. The episode traces Iran’s descent from a U.S. ally under the Shah—whose modernization efforts were undermined by autocracy and repression—to the 1979 Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini, whose regime immediately declared 'Death to America' and launched the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis. Shapiro frames subsequent U.S. foreign policy failures under Carter, Obama, and Biden as appeasement that emboldened Iran’s global terror network, including support for Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, and its pursuit of nuclear weapons. In contrast, he praises President Trump’s 'maximum pressure' campaign, including the assassination of Qasem Soleimani and Operation Midnight Hammer and Operation Epic Fury, which he claims have crippled Iran’s military, nuclear program, and leadership. The episode concludes with a stark moral dichotomy: the West values life and prosperity, while Iran’s regime, in Shapiro’s view, is fundamentally defined by death, terror, and anti-Western extremism.