The MeidasTouch Podcast

Podbit · The MeidasTouch Podcast

Trump Haunted by Ayatollah's Funeral

Explore episode Jul 5, 2026

Where this was said

28 Countries, One Funeral: The Isolation Strategy That Backfired

At 9:03 · chapter starts 7:00

With a granular list of attending nations — Turkey, India, Pakistan, China, Russia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Iraq, Georgia, Armenia, Afghanistan, Oman, Qatar, and many more — Meiselas makes the case that the funeral functioned as a referendum on Iran's global standing. The goal of the Trump-Netanyahu campaign was to isolate Iran; instead, countries that had been kept at arm's length sent their top dignitaries. Meiselas points out that killing the Ayatollah — who was the Shia world's equivalent of the Pope — turned him into a martyr and unified not just Iranians domestically but Shia communities across Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen. He argues the intelligence community understood this dynamic and tried to warn Trump, but Netanyahu's framing — '24 hours, they'll welcome us as heroes' — overrode it. He draws a sharp contrast: Obama, Biden, and Hillary Clinton all pushed back against Netanyahu's pressure to escalate against Iran; Trump embraced it.

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