Have relations thawed between US and Iran?

Americano

The Spectator

Politics, News, News Commentary

4 • 714 Ratings

🗓️ 22 September 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Freddy Gray is joined by Charlie Gammell, a historian and former diplomat who was on the Iran desk at the foreign office. On the podcast they discuss this week's Iran-US deal where six prisoners have been released on either side and $6bn sent back to Iran. There has been political backlash with the Republicans suggesting the Democrats are 'funding terror', but does this show a thawing of once frosty relations?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The Spectator magazine combines incisive political analysis with books and arts reviews of unrivaled authority.
0:07.6	Subscribe today for just £12 and receive a 12 week subscription, in print and online, plus a £20 £20,000 Amazon gift voucher, absolutely free.
0:17.3	Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher.
0:26.3	Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American power, politics and society.
0:36.3	On each episode, I will talk to an American expert or an expert on America
0:41.3	about something that's going on in America in 2023. I am delighted to be joined today by
0:48.9	Charlie Gamble, who is a former diplomat. You were on the foreign desk, the Iran desk in the foreign office, sorry I should say.
0:57.6	And he joins me here sitting opposite me in the Spectator studio in a sort of confrontational way.
1:03.5	But we're not going to be confrontational, Charlie.
1:05.5	Welcome to The Spectator.
1:07.2	Thank you very much, really lovely to be here.
1:08.9	We're going to talk about this deal that the Biden administration has struck this week. Six, I think it was, US citizens have returned to America, having been released by Iran. And six billion that was sort of in funds, six billion dollars, which was frozen in Korea, has been unfrozen. It's rather significant
1:29.5	sum of money. There has been a political backlash. Republicans are angry about it. They're
1:36.7	saying that the Biden administration is funding terror, which is the line they often use about Iran,
1:41.8	and Donald Trump has said that Joe Biden is dumb as a brick.
1:45.8	What do you read into this deal, Charlie? Do you think this is a significant thawing in
1:51.7	frosty relations? I think U.S.-Iran relations since 1979 have been categorized by a lot of
1:58.3	mistrust. And over the course of those years, there hasn't really been
2:02.3	much consensus between Iran and America. I think in the context of that, we should be wary about
2:07.5	reading anything too positive into this, because this is not a return to the nuclear deal, as
2:12.7	Anthony Blinken has said, when asked about whether this heralded had returned in talks around
2:16.8	reviving the 2015
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Spectator, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Spectator and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.