On the eve of the assault on Iran by Israel and the United States in February 2026, I had the chance to talk to Wendy Brown. This interview explores the transformation of the state under finance capital and the intensification of social nihilism. Brown’s analyses of the “global construction” of the Iranian predicament and the “privatization of the state” remain strikingly prescient and conceptually vital for understanding the current crisis. Ranging from what Brown calls “the equal right to inequality” to the discussion of profiteering from the destruction of Gaza, the conversation offers a rigorous materialist map of the neoliberal ruins we inhabit.