Hannah Rosen

Well, Nick, thank you so much for joining us.

This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Janae West.

It was edited by Kevin Townsend.

Rob Smerciak engineered and provided original music.

Sam Fentress and Genevieve Finn fact-checked.

Claudina Bade is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.

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I'm Hannah Rosen.

Thank you for listening.

Today, we're talking about a potential war with Iran, which is a fast-shifting situation.

We're recording this episode on Wednesday afternoon, a day before the U.S.

and Iran are scheduled to hold talks in Geneva.

Ahead of the negotiation, Iranian officials are giving mixed messages, calling Trump's remarks about Iran big lies, but also saying they hope the two sides can come to an agreement through diplomacy.

U.S.

Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are meeting with Iran's top negotiator, Abbas Araghchi, along with a mediator from Oman.

The backdrop of these talks, meanwhile, includes dozens of U.S.

warships and military aircraft recently moved to the region and aimed at Iran, which are possibly a tool to put pressure on Iranian leaders to yield to negotiations, but also it's a bigger buildup than you would typically use for just that purpose.

I'm Hannah Rosen.

This is Radio Atlantic.

President Trump has given many signals lately that he's prepared to go to war with Iran, but very little clarity about what the goal of that war would be.