‘The Iran Conversation No One Is Having’ with David Frum

Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps · Mar 5, 2026 · 49m · transcript

David Frum had a front-row seat the last time America went to war against a Middle Eastern adversary. He was in the George W. Bush administration in the lead-up to the Iraq War. In fact, as one of Bush's speechwriters, he wrote the line that came to define American foreign policy for the first decade of the 21st century. Four months after the World Trade Center towers were turned to rubble, President Bush channelled Frum in his State of the Union speech, saying that rogue states which harbored, financed and aided terrorists -- like North Korea, Iraq and Iran -- "constitute an axis of evil…