2025-04-19
23 分钟Hello, and welcome to the Rahman Review.
I'm Gideon Rahman, Chief Foreign Affairs Commentator of the Financial Times.
This week's podcast is about Iran's nuclear program and the threat of another war in the Middle East.
My guest is Sanam Vakil, Director of the Middle East Programme at Chatham House here in London.
Nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran began in Amman last weekend and are set to continue soon.
President Trump's repeatedly warned that if the talks fail, military action is the alternative.
So is Iran heading for a new nuclear deal or for war?
That was, of course, President Trump with an unambiguous threat towards Iran.
It all sounds very alarming,
but talk of a bombing raid on Iran's nuclear program has been around for decades,
and there have been previous rounds of talks and deals reached and then broken.
So I began my conversation with Sanam Vakil by asking her, what's different this time?
Well, 10 years on from the Iran nuclear agreement, the landscape has changed geopolitically,
regionally, within Iran, and of course, considering Iran's nuclear program.
Looking bottom up,
Iran's nuclear program has advanced significantly
since the U.S. withdrew from the nuclear agreement in 2018.
That's the one known as the JCPOA.
Yes.
Yes, that's right.