Donald Trump says the US is lifting its blockade of Iranian ports and boats in the Strait of Hormuz - does this mean a peace deal is imminent?

Plus, Iran famously has two militaries: a regular army, and the IRGC. But Tehran also has a third force: its network of foreign militias in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. They played a key role in the recent war - and no outsider knows them better than Elizabeth Tsurkov. In 2023, while on a research trip to Iraq, the Russian-Israeli PhD student was kidnapped for nearly three years by Kataib Hezbollah, the most powerful of Iran’s Iraqi proxy militias. 

Still recovering from the ordeal, she takes Sophia Yan and Roland Oliphant inside the group - and why she was surprised to learn that many of her kidnappers were “idiots”. Plus, she explains how they sustain Iran’s shadow economy, dominate politics in their host counties, and double up as fronts for massive embezzlement schemes.  

Highlights

• Donald Trump lifts US naval blockade on Iran
• Elizabeth Tsurkov on being kidnapped by “idiot” Iranian militias in Iraq

CONTRIBUTORS:

Sophia Yan, senior foreign correspondent, @sophia_yan 

Roland Oliphant, co-host and chief foreign affairs analyst @RolandOliphant

Elizabeth Tsurkov, fellow at the New Lines Institute @LizHurra

CONTENT REFERENCED:

Elizabeth Tsurkov: I Was Kidnapped by Idiots

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/01/kidnapped-baghdad/685470/

Producer: Peter Shevlin

Executive Producers: Venetia Rainey & Louisa Wells

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