I welcome my colleague and mentor, Gregory Copley, editor and publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs and author of Nobel State.
We turn to the breaking news. This is less than 24 hours. That's enough these days, given how the world is going. The U.S. and Iran will resume nuclear talks on Saturday.
This is another round of talks about the suspect nuclear weapons program. CNN writes: “A second round of nuclear talks between the United States and Iran concluded last Saturday . . . Delegations from both countries met in Rome for negotiations following an initial round in Oman last weekend . . . The Trump administration expressed optimism.” All right.
They're talking about the suspect nuclear weapons program. At the same time, it is clear for more than a year now that Iran is the author of the predation of the whole region, but especially driving the Hamas attack on Israel's settlements and the Hezbollah reigning of artillery and rockets down on the north of Israel, and the Houthi attack on the Red Sea and on Israel, and of the Iranian direct assault on Israel. Iran is the author of all of that.
But the US chooses to talk to Iran about the suspect nuclear weapons program. I'm told the positions for both sides are this: Iran wants a return to the JCPOA of 2015. The position out of Israel is said to be that Iran must not be permitted to have a nuclear weapon, no negotiation possible. It must not have that weapon, and the program must be dismantled.
The U.S. position is said to be somewhere in between. This is a piece of the larger story of the moving conflicts of the Middle East. For example, MBS, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, recently the foreign minister, to Tehran to sit with the Ayatollah. This would be the Hatfields and McCoys sitting together.
So clearly there is change afoot. The Iran story and the Middle East story, are they converging, or are they diverging, given the changing sides in Syria and Lebanon and Egypt?
Gregory’s answer? “As usual, there’s politics, and then there’s reality.”
Watch the full conversation above, or listen to an audio version below:
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