(‘Alternate Shots’, Episode #33. Co-hosted by Richard Haass and John Ellis. Produced by Dale Eisinger. Recorded, 6 August 2026. If you prefer, you can listen to this episode (and all previous episodes) by clicking on these hyperlinks: Apple, Amazon, and Spotify. We’re on a number of other podcast platforms as well. And YouTube!)
Liner Notes.
The Iran war is now entering its six month. It remains the dominant news story, so we start with Richard’s assessment of where things stand and what might happen next. Richard’s assessment is, unfortunately, not upbeat. It is, as always, realistic.
From there we discuss the worrisome depletion of sophisticated U.S. “munitions” (especially air defense systems), Ukraine’s desperate need for same and what Ukraine can do to keep the pressure on Putin.
From there, we discuss Israel’s collapsing support in both the Republican and Democratic parties, Tuesday’s primary results in Michigan and the startling referenda results in Missouri and Kansas.
We move on to a discussion about AI, perhaps the dominant news story of our time.
We conclude with our wildly popular sports section. Richard is hedging on the New York Giants’ upcoming season, a notably swift climb-down from his previous assertions that the Giants were a lock for the NFL play-offs this year.
We wrap things up with a riff on the famous headline: “Pennant Fever Grips Hub”. The Boston Red Sox are the story of this baseball season. “Turn-around” doesn’t really capture what the Sawx have done in the last two months. As Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessey put it in his column today: “The team that couldn’t win is the team that can’t lose”.
Addendum:
Regarding the Iran war, we didn’t get a chance to discuss this piece in Foreign Affairs — ‘How the Axis of Resistance Recovered: The Iranian-Led Network Is More Dangerous Than Ever”. It’s worth reading in full.