Hi everyone, I'm Zanny Minton Beddoes, the Economist's Editor-in-Chief.
Welcome back to The Insider.
This week we are talking about the extraordinary events in Iran.
What started a few weeks ago as a strike by shopkeepers
has snowballed into the biggest protests in decades and then,
in the past few days, the most brutal crackdown
in which many thousands are feared killed.
President Trump threatened to intervene,
but just yesterday in the White House he made comments
which suggested that maybe that intervention was not so imminent.
To make sense of all that, we have as always Ed Carr, my deputy.
Very nice to see you Ed.
And with me is Nick Pelham, our Middle East correspondent.
Nick and I were just in Washington where we were talking to various Iran watchers,
and also to Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah
who has become a rallying figure for the opposition.
And Adam, back to join us again, foreign editor.
Very nice to see you.
Adam of course was in Tehran with Nick just a few months ago.
And joining us from Riyadh is Greg Carlstrom, our Middle East correspondent.