Erica Solomon
speaker
28 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 9 Sep
Erica Solomon’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.
Appearances
So this was a line that Iran had been very hesitant to cross before.
They were very reluctant to do the kind of strikes that could inflict heavy casualties for American forces, which is why we hadn't really seen them launch a major strike on a U.S.
warship.
Regional experts and political analysts in Iran that I've been speaking to say that what we're seeing is basically Iran trying to signal it's ready and willing to escalate.
From Iran's perspective, they're feeling really an economic squeeze from the U.S.
naval blockade.
The country's suffering from a fuel shortage crisis.
The economic despair is just really palpable.
They don't feel they have much to lose from expanding the conflict right now.
Another thing you hear Iranian commentators say a lot is that this is the moment to do it.
They're convinced President Trump is going to launch a new round of war against them anyway once the U.S.
midterm elections are over.
If his party wins, he'll feel emboldened.
If they do poorly, they're worried he won't feel there's much reason not to go heavy on Iran.
So from their perspective, if they want to inflict a political cost on President Trump, they need to do that now.
President Trump has been saying for weeks now that Iran and the United States are just at the cusp of an agreement, but it continues to not materialize.
So my colleagues and I have spent the past few weeks talking to mediators, trying to understand what is the hangup.
It's likely that some version of this preliminary deal will be agreed to by Washington and Tehran.
The problem is how to frame it in a way that both sides can sell it as a win, particularly to the hardliners and hawks in their countries that feel like they should be pushing harder.
On top of that, you have some of the oddities of the two leaders behind these countries' talks themselves.
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