Politics Theory Other

The conflict between the United States and Iran is now in its sixth month. In today's episode security expert Paul Rogers joins PTO to talk about the current situation and the prospects of a deal between the United States and Iran that might lead to the opening of the straits. We talked about why Donald Trump recently backed away from launching a major attack on Iranian infrastructure, the current posture of the UAE, Saudi Arabia ,and the other Gulf monarchies and the prospect of Israel potentially embarking on further escalation if a deal - likely to be highly detrimental to Israel's regional position - were to be concluded between Washington and Tehran.

Richard Seymour responds to listener questions on the politics of new UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

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From rising geopolitical tensions, to the worsening climate situation, and from the Gaza genocide to hot wars that threaten to spill into great power conflict, the world of the 2020s is one of concatenating crises. But is our moment an interregnum that will be followed by a new moment of relatively ordered hegemony?

Juliano Fiori, director of the Alameda Institute, argues otherwise and makes the case that we have entered a post-order situation in which crisis is the new normal.

In our conversation today, we talked about why Juliano believes the creation of a relatively stable new international order is unlikely and why China will probably not be able to assume a position of international leadership on the scale needed to create such an order. We also talked about Gramsci's concept of the Interregnum, and how disordering at the international level is mirrored and mutually constituted by the disordering of national polities and the world of work. And we also talked about the extent to which the pre-Donald Trump era really was a rules-based system given the extreme violence that the United States and its allies have been the authors of since WWII.

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Liza Featherstone joins PTO to talk about the impressive primary victories for DSA-backed candidates in the New York primaries.

We chatted about what the ramifications of the results are - both statewide but also nationally - and what the implications are for who will be the Democrats' candidate in the next presidential election. We also talked about the differences between the organising models of the DSA and the more moderate Working Families Party. And finally, we discussed the salience of Palestine and the Gaza genocide in how the various primary campaigns played out.

Show notes:

Liza's Jacobin piece on the elections: https://jacobin.com/2026/06/dsa-valdez-chevalier-mamdani-nyc

The recent interview with Adrienne Buller on the politics of Heatwaves:
https://www.patreon.com/poltheoryother/posts/heatwave-w-160906528