From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of the New Yorker and WNYC Studios.

Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

Tensions between the United States and Iran have escalated to a point where war has begun to seem like a real possible outcome.

There have been attacks on oil tankers, a U.S. drone was shot down, and President Trump signed

off on airstrikes against targets in Iran before changing course after being told that there

would be 150 casualties. And who knows what's next in this seemingly heedless confrontation.

New Yorker staff writer Dexter Filkins has been reporting from the Middle East for years,

and I spoke with him late last week.

Now, Dexter, events are accelerating between the United States in Iran in a way that is completely unpredictable.

Try to give us some background and context here.

You know, I think it's pretty difficult to divine Iranian motives here. But having said that, you know, the Iranians took credit for the

attack and they said, we don't want a war with the United States, but we're ready for one if it

comes to that.

I think what's happened here is the Iranians feel like they've been pushed into a corner by the campaign, the White House campaign of what the White House calls maximum pressure,

and that's maximum economic pressure and the withdrawal from the nuclear agreement. I think they feel like, you know, maximum economic pressure and the withdrawal from the nuclear agreement.

I think they feel like, you know, the White House wants us to come to them on their knees,

and we're not going to do that.

So what are our choices?

And so I think that's what we're seeing here, that they're kind of striking out in anger and frustration.

Now, without underestimating

Iran's malign behavior in the region, isn't it really the Trump administration that's initiated

this kind of confrontation by canceling our end of the nuclear deal, by putting on enormous

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