Tessa Fleming

So how realistic is the prospect of a peace deal at this point?

And with Secretary of State Marco Rubio increasingly rowing in behind the President's foreign policy agenda, who is this political hawk turned Trump cheerleader?

Mr. President, you know this well.

You have other options available to you if that doesn't work.

But the bottom line is that we prefer the negotiated diplomatic route and we're going to give it every chance to succeed.

And how did he climb to the top of the Mar-a-Lago ladder?

I'm Tessa Fleming and today on the IndoDaily, I'm joined by Scott Lucas, Professor of US and International Politics at the Clinton Institute, UCD, to discuss the latest on Iran and the rise of Marco Rubio.

Scott Lucas, it's Thursday morning and I suppose with a lot of news stories involving Donald Trump, this is again a fast changing and an ever evolving situation.

So the US and Iran appear to be close to a peace deal.

However, this week there has been an escalation in hostilities between the two and that has really threatened this tenacious ceasefire that took effect in early April.

So before we get into, I suppose, the details of a potential peace deal and how likely that is now,

Talk me through what has happened with these hostilities and why tensions have flared.

So up until these skirmishes, as you say, when the ceasefire was introduced, were things pretty stable?

Was there much going on or was it relatively kind of peaceful?

And then given the strikes this week, where does that leave things now?

Where does it leave the diplomatic track and is there a potential agreement still realistically on the table?

So when it comes to a deal or a peace deal, I mean, what are the sticking points?

Because, you know, there are disputes and Iran and the US have continued to release, you know, conflicting statements over, you know, control of the Strait of Hormuz.

There was the US claiming that Iran would give up its enriched uranium reserves, which Tehran has rejected.

And then there's also the issue of $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets.