Nancy Youssef

So it kind of depends on who you ask.

If you talk to the Americans, they would say that they want the talks to include several sort of categories.

First, the future of Iran's nuclear program.

Second, the future of its ballistic missile capability.

Third, the use of its proxies across the region.

The Iranians would say that the talks have to focus strictly on their nuclear program, that asking them to limit their ballistic missile capability goes against their sovereignty and their ability for self-defense.

So it depends on who you ask in terms of what specifically has been outlined.

The overlap on that Venn diagram, though, is the future of its nuclear program.

Having said that...

The U.S.

has called for a complete disarmament, which the Iranians have rejected, saying that that would be a threat to them and that they would maintain the program.

And so even though we know that they agree that nuclear program is part of the talks,

What is an acceptable outcome?

We haven't heard publicly, at least, an agreement on what that would look like.

If, for example, the United States agreed to the Iranians limiting their program for the next three to five years, would that be an acceptable outcome for the United States?

As the administration's laid it out right now, it would not be.

I wouldn't describe any of this as typical because we've built up such a big military force in the region and the threat of force is so imminent.

And then on the specifics of the talks, usually, let's use the agreement from 2015, it's a months-long process that's really deep into the details of their program.

So Ernie Moniz, Secretary of Energy at the time, was at those talks because he's an expert on the topic.

And so I think one of the reasons you're seeing this gap is that the talks, as they've been outlined so far, don't appear to be as detailed as I think were.