Hi, everybody. We have a bit of a breaking news situation this morning, a breaking news situation

that's building upon another breaking news story that just developed over last weekend. And because

it's Friday, we're heading into yet another weekend, I thought it was just the right time to sit

down and have a quick chat

about what we're seeing in the Middle East. Just a very general overview. Last weekend, we saw

a historic attack from Iran on Israel. And then over the last 12 hours, we got news of some

sort of attack, or so it was described, in Iran. And all fingers

have been pointing at Israel for this because there's been in an anticipation of retaliation

because of what happened last weekend. But we're still in a stage of gathering the facts.

And so I think it's really important to know that, but because the potential and the stakes

of this story are very high, I wanted to bring in someone with an expertise in the region,

someone who speaks the language, which is also very important in this case, Farsi, Farsi is the language of Iran, and who not only has

an academic and technical knowledge of what we're going to be discussing, but also has a

cultural understanding of the dynamics at play. And there's really no one better than Ben

Tala Blue. He's the senior fellow at the

Foundation for Defensive Democracies. You may recognize him because we've talked to him in the past,

but when someone's good, we want to bring them back. And it's nice to have you back, Benham,

as we've been corresponding over the last couple days about this new story, and I've been

watching your work and listening

to a lot of your interviews. You know, set the stage for us, if you will. You were up almost all last

night. I know you look at news from all over the world. What should we know? What should we know about

what just happened in Iran or maybe what didn't happen in Iran. Thank you, Jenna. It's always good to be back.

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