A man, a plan, Iran

Worldly

Vox Media Podcast Network

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.4 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 2 August 2018

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this week’s episode, Zack, Jenn, and Alex look at the economics behind Trump’s offer to sit down with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. The Iranian economy is in trouble after the US withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, due to the impending threat of new sanctions; Trump hopes this will pressure the Iranians to come back to the negotiating table, but it might actually backfire. On Elsewhere, they talk about Google’s plan to move into China by building a censored search engine, and the ways tech giants are like mini states. Alex reveals his love of pistachios, Jenn expresses distaste for Bing, and Zack pinpoints the “Iranian carrot.” References! We played a clip from a recent Trump rally in Tampa, Florida. The full rally can be found here. Jenn read a quote from this Chicago Tribune article, which also goes deeper into the Iranian economy. Alex gave us a recap on America’s previous sanctions and the Iran nuclear deal. More details here. He also mentioned that the Iranian currency has dropped dramatically since 2012. In discussing the protests, the team referenced the Green Movement. Zack suggests this research on the effects of sanctions as further reading. The Intercept piece that broke the Google Project Dragonfly story. More on Google’s first go-round in China, and on Operation Aurora. Jenn ran through some censorship specifics. She gave the example of the Winnie the Pooh ban and, more recently, the crackdown on women calling out sexual assault. Alex mentioned that Google employees pushed back against Pentagon contracts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to worldly on the Fox Media Podcast Network. I am Zach Beecham, joined as always by Jen Williams and Alex Ward.
0:17.0	Hello.
0:18.0	Hi.
0:19.0	This week, President Trump offered to have a meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani a surprise move
0:24.0	considering all the nasty things he's been saying about Iran over the course of his presidency.
0:28.4	The Iranian foreign ministry declined pretty forcefully. They called it a humiliation given you know the
0:35.8	recent history of the US withdrawing from the nuclear deal that it had
0:39.2	painstakingly negotiated with Iran. But Trump seems to think a meeting still might happen.
0:45.5	I hope it works out well with Iran.
0:47.2	They have a lot of difficulty right now.
0:49.1	I hope it works out well.
0:50.9	And I have a feeling they'll be talking to us pretty soon.
0:53.7	So when he says Iran is having a lot of difficulty, he's mostly referring to economic problems.
1:00.3	These problems are really important to understanding what's happening right now, this whole negotiation back and forth and diplomatic to and fro.
1:08.0	And that's what we're going to talk about today. The economy and what it means for these broader geopolitical issues.
1:12.8	So we need to start even before the nuclear deal.
1:16.8	Alex, take us back in time.
1:18.4	Sure, so one thing that's important to know is that the US and Iran have been in a kind of economic
1:23.1	spat since 1979 after the hostage crisis. The Carter administration sanctioned
1:26.9	Iran. We've been doing it kind of ever since. The Obama administration used the
1:31.5	sanctions tool, right, imposing financial costs on Iran as a way to get
1:35.0	them to the negotiating table to strike a nuclear deal.
	...

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