Chapter 1: What are the latest developments in U.S.-Iran relations?
NPR News Now is your podcast source for updates every hour on the U.S. military action in Iran. President Trump calls it a war and says the goal is regime change. He also says U.S. casualties are possible. With news changing rapidly, listen to NPR News Now. New episodes at the top of every hour on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Myles Parks. I cover voting.
I'm Frank Ordonez. I cover the White House.
And I'm Greg Myrie. I cover national security. And today on the pod, trying to decipher if the United States is about to go to war with Iran. The two countries have been meeting in Switzerland to hammer out some kind of deal related to Iran's nuclear program. Frank, let's just start with the basics here. What does the United States want from a deal?
Well, I mean, Trump says they want a lot of stuff. I mean, they've talked about no nuclear missiles. They've talked about stopping the ballistic program. They've talked about no proxy militant groups or support for those proxy militant groups. Some people think regime change, but what they haven't been clear about is what they would accept in any kind of specific deal.
And Trump really has not explained his objectives to the American people. He has not asked for any kind of special authorization from Congress. And he really had a big chance to do that at the State of the Union. But he kind of just kind of meshed up all these points together without laying out any kind of specifics about why this may be necessary at this moment in time.
Okay. And then looking at Iran, Greg, what are they hoping to get out of these talks?
So the Iranians are insisting, as they always have, that they can keep at least part of their nuclear program. They say they have the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. They also know they're probably going to have to offer some concessions. President Trump tore up the previous nuclear agreement in 2018.
So for him to accept a new one, it would have to presumably include some additional elements that weren't there in the last one. But Iran... says it's not going to completely dismantle its nuclear program, as the U.S. appears to be demanding. And also, Iran wants some of the sanctions lifted. It faces all of these sanctions that the U.S.
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Chapter 2: What does the Trump administration want from a deal with Iran?
Miles, I would say there's sort of three basic options. One is they keep on talking. They've had three rounds of talks. They've talked about having additional talks next week. So no reason they can't keep talking. Previous negotiations went on for months and months, years earlier. Second, the U.S. could strike, but in a limited kind of way. Strike for a couple of days.
Last June, we saw Israel and the U.S. team up for 12 days of bombing of Iran, and Iran responded. But then Trump just declared a ceasefire, and that was the end of that round. So we could again see a limited round. Or Trump could go big and order a massive, open-ended, sustained military campaign, perhaps with the goal of trying to oust the Iranian regime.
But that would be a huge operation, no guarantee of success. So those are three basic options. Obviously, there could be lots of other possibilities as well.
Yeah, and I will note that Vice President J.D. Vance said in an interview with The Washington Post that the sort of option three there, the more full-scale military intervention, it doesn't seem like there's appetite for that from the administration at this point. Is that fair to say, Franco?
Yeah, I mean – I think that is fair to say for sure. I mean, he is the vice president of the United States. I was a bit surprised that he would come out and say that publicly, considering Trump, his MO is to always say that all options are on the table.
And the rhetoric that he uses talking to the public is often one of the biggest parts of the strategy for his team in trying to put pressure on the Iranian regime. And that Clearly, he is trying to put as much pressure as possible. So I was surprised about that. But, you know, look, this is Trump.
I mean, he campaigned this time and in 2016 on a being a president of peace, of not taking the United States into a war, of not wanting to start another never ending war in his term. So. it seems very much in Trump's stead to want to find some type of option where he could go in and out. You know, as Greg is talking about, maybe it'd be a day, maybe it'd be a couple of days.
But I think President Trump wants something very clearly where he can go in, get out and declare victory and not have any type of situation remotely similar to to Iraq or Afghanistan. But, you know, this is when you get into military conflicts, there's just so much uncertainty.
Greg, I want to ask about Israel, which is not a country we've mentioned yet. They obviously have a lot of interests at play here. Can you explain, I guess, what they're hoping comes out of these talks and how much they're playing into Trump's thinking?
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Chapter 3: What are Iran's demands in the nuclear talks?
So that's an immediate threat to Israel that they want to address as well. The Trump administration has raised the missile issue, but it seems the talks have so far been limited to the nuclear program. going after the missile program would be a bigger operation. There are multiple nuclear sites, but the missiles can be in many different places. The Iranians move them around.
They make missiles in one place. They prepare them for launch in another. They have mobile launchers. So that would greatly expand the operation if you make an effort to deal a major, significant long-term blow to Iran's missile program.
I did find it interesting, though, that Trump has been and the administration has been talking more about the missile program from Trump's remarks in the State of the Union, talking about how Iran is closer than ever to getting missiles that potentially reach the United States, which seems a little bit of an exaggeration. You would know more than I would, Greg.
But also Marco Rubio this week talking about How the talks and kind of expressing some frustration with the lack of progress in the talks, but expressing a lot of frustration about that. They're not even talking about the missile program and saying publicly that the fact that Ron refuses to talk about ballistic missiles being a big, big problem.
Yeah. And from Iran's perspective, it's the one defensive measure they really have. This is probably not going to be a ground war. We wouldn't expect to see ground troops that the U.S. or anybody else would send in ground troops. Iran's Navy is not much to speak of. The one way Iran can defend itself and strike out against Israel or U.S. ships in the region is with ballistic missiles.
So Iran says there's no way we're going to even talk about this and we're certainly not going to give up our missiles. We would, in fact, be surrendering at the negotiating table. So Iran just says that's not going to be discussed. As far as we know, it hasn't been. The talks have been about the nuclear issues. The U.S. wants to expand into missile discussions, as would Israel.
But so far, that doesn't seem to be on the table. Okay.
Well, we're having this conversation about... The possibility, the very real possibility of military intervention in Iran. I guess I'm just curious how much of a threat Iran actually poses to the United States as we sit here today.
Yeah. So if we're talking today, the Iranians do not have a nuclear weapon. Even if they did, they don't have a missile or a delivery system that could launch it and strike the United States. So at the moment, there's not a direct threat to the continental states.
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Chapter 4: What military options does the U.S. have regarding Iran?
I think it just opens it up for even more anger and more people to be disappointed and and just just confused about about the U.S.
priorities in this in this area. And beyond the domestic front, there's the international front. President Trump hasn't gone to the United Nations to make the case there, to seek some sort of UN approval. He has not built a coalition beyond working closely with Israel. But we've seen... several U.S.
allies, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, say, we don't really want to be a part of this in terms of using our bases or flying over our airspace. And that can be significant. In some of the recent clashes between Israel and Iran, Jordan, for example, shot down drones or missiles that were flying over its airspace. Now, it wouldn't come out and say, we're doing this to protect Israel.
They were saying, we don't want those objects flying over our airspace. So they were shooting them down as sort of their own self-defense. That's the kind of assistance you can get or may need from allies in the region. And the Trump administration just hasn't reached out and is getting a real hands-off approach from U.S. allies in the region and beyond.
All right, we can take a quick break and more on all of this in just a moment.
The U.S. launches a military operation against Iran. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime. On State of the World, we'll bring you the latest on the operation as well as reaction from the region and around the globe. Listen to State of the World on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
And we're back. And this month also marks four years since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Greg. Can you get us up to speed on that conflict there and what is the current state of the war?
Yeah, Miles. So as we sit here and look at it long distance, not very much is changing. In fact, it's a stalemate in many ways. The front line is not moving, hasn't been moving really for the past couple of years, small Russian advances. But But there's another way to look at it. And again, the four-year mark gives us an opportunity to do that.
Both sides are waging this very intense war, and it seems that neither will be able to keep this up indefinitely. Ukraine certainly faces this great strain in terms of manpower. Does it have enough people to keep on the front line, to keep fighting at this level?
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Chapter 5: How does Israel influence U.S. policy towards Iran?
But as Greg was kind of pointing out, it's just kind of things don't seem to be moving forward, not only on the ground in the war, but also in kind of like the diplomatic point, or at least it doesn't seem like you're not seeing much progress.
So I've been trying to think about this for a long time of how do you boil this down to the basic contradictions. And the best I can do is this. President Trump wants a deal to end the war, stop the fighting. He's expressed very little interest in the details of what it might look like or who would have to give up what. He wants a deal, wants the fighting to stop. That's his priority.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader... seems to want to drag this war out. Russia is gaining a little territory, not much, and it's a very high cost, but he seems to want to stretch this out, believing he will outlast Ukraine, the U.S., Europe, and that time is his ally and on his side. So there's one of the main contradictions, Trump wanting to end it, Putin wanting to drag it out.
For Ukraine, the question is, how does this war end? Do we have to give up the 20 percent of our territory that the Russians now hold? Can we... maybe freeze that front line and negotiate over time? Can we withstand this ongoing Russian onslaught? Will our country be viable? Will we still be getting support from Europe, which has replaced the U.S.
as the main donor of both military and financial assistance? So it's the how this war ends for Ukraine. So they're very different interests here. And to me, that's why we're not seeing any progress on these peace talks.
Well, you mentioned Europe kind of replacing the United States as the sort of main driver behind Ukraine's military efforts. Is that specifically because President Trump has sort of taken a more hands off approach than President Biden did in terms of supporting Ukraine?
Yeah. Yes, absolutely. The U.S. was the biggest donor during the Biden administration. President Trump announced during his campaign and when he came into office, we're going to cut off new military assistance to Ukraine. That has happened. There's maybe a little bit still trickling through the pipeline based on legislation passed during the Biden administration. But the policy now is the U.S.
will sell weapons to European members of NATO who can then give it to Ukraine and That's happening. Hard to tell the exact scale of that. The Europeans have stepped up. They've replaced a lot of the assistance that the U.S. was providing in strictly dollar terms. And that can be both, I'm talking financial assistance or military assistance.
But the Europeans can't replace everything simply because some weapons like missiles in the Patriot air defense system simply come from the U.S. and nowhere else. So they can't in terms of the exact item, replace it. Can they do this for the long term or just the short term? We don't know yet.
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Chapter 6: What is the current state of the war in Ukraine?
for this aspect. And it is a hard balance that, you know, that not only Trump is trying to have, but also Europe. I mean, the Trump administration, when I talk to White House officials, they want to pull back. But they also realize that this is not going to end unless the United States stays involved or at least, you know, not a negotiated end. in any type of way in the near future.
And we could add this to our list of contradictions. Europe is now the main supporter of Ukraine in the war, but it's the U.S. that's still negotiating with Russia. And the Europeans don't want to be left out. They're not really happy about being left out, even as they're stepping up in terms of providing assistance to Ukraine.
I mean, where do things go from here in terms of timeline? Are we any closer or... Is a resolution in sight at all, or is there even the glimmer of down the road of a resolution here, or does it feel like this is just indefinite stalemate moving forward?
They're talking at the same table, the Russians, the Ukrainians, and the Americans. So, you know, that's progress of a sort. The Ukrainians have certainly hinted that they'll, or flat out said they'll do certain things, like they're certainly willing to consider foreign freezing the front line of the conflict.
And boy, that certainly seems to make some sense in a conflict where that front line isn't moving. A lot of people are getting killed, but there's not really much movement. Why not freeze it in place and then hold the negotiations? Russia has really resisted that. You could see some outlines developing, but in terms of concrete progress, no, you're not really seeing that.
And again, the Russians just seem to feel Time is our ally. Time is on our side. We don't want to make any deals right now.
Yeah, I would take Greg's assessment right there as very optimistic. We've heard the president of the United States say so many times, like, great progress. We're about, you know, turning the corner so many times where things just fall apart or don't go anywhere. And, like, even the president is saying, hey, we've reached a deal or we've reached an agreement with Ukraine.
We reached an agreement with Russia. It is always, though... U.S. reaching an agreement with Ukraine, U.S. reaching an agreement with Russia, or some type of outlines. What hasn't happened is no type of like, hey, Ukraine and Russia have come to some type of meeting of the minds. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, Greg, but they've never gotten to that state.
And until there's some more kind of hard, either in black and white or something, I It just seems to be getting more and more pessimistic that there is going to be some kind of progress. Yes, they are at the same table. And yes, that is something. But when you ask, is this real progress? You know, it's hard not to roll your eyes.
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Chapter 7: How is the U.S. involved in the Ukraine conflict?
Craig, I'm already worried enough about AI. Now you got like mass drones coming at us. Yeah, you should worry, Franco. Worry.
All right, I'll go next. The thing I cannot let go of, and I feel like everyone's been talking about it, but literally I feel like I was watching this just last night and I was thinking about it. I love when it's I can't let it go that I truly can remember the three times this week I thought about it. It's Kash Patel. At the men's Olympics game.
You know, I think many listeners will probably already know what I'm talking about. But basically, after the men's hockey team won the gold, FBI Director Kash Patel was seen in the locker room. It looks very similar to me when I won the rec league basketball championship a few years ago. I mean, he's just like, let's off and go. And he's like throwing the beer around and he's drinking it.
And I feel like... There's a lot of reasons about this that are bigger picture questions that are worth talking about, that a lot of people are talking about in terms of whether government money was used to fund this trip and things of that nature. We're not going to go down that rabbit hole right now.
What I was curious about is just specifically about how voters perceive this, because I do think... President Trump won the popular vote. And I think a big part of his message leading to the 2024 election was that people really want to feel like regular people are in these positions of power. I am not sure that FBI director is the job that you want.
Just kind of like your best buddy from college in that job doing the stuff he did in college.
Yeah. Chris Ray, Robert Mueller. Exactly. I don't see them in the locker room. I was imagining.
That's what I was thinking. I was like imagining Christopher Ray bombing beers and I just could not. I couldn't get there. Anyway, Franco, what can't you let go of?
Well, I am fascinated with some of the stuff that's going on in Latin America. Have you guys seen this group of teens in Argentina who are hanging out, kind of wearing dog masks and other animal masks? There's this kind of viral video of them hanging out in parks, having meetups, going to parks, climbing trees, jumping over each other.
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of a potential U.S. strike on Iran?
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