Is diplomacy with Iran dead? | NonZero World feat. Alan Eyre

Robert Wright's Nonzero

Nonzero

News & Politics, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.7 • 618 Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

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Summary

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0:30 Are US-Iran talks dead? 4:24 Do normal Iranians care about the nuclear program? 6:40 Understanding Iran’s enrichment red line 9:42 Assessing the damage to Iran's nuclear facilities 12:25 Iran's decision to kick out inspectors 15:38 Could Iran build a bomb in secret? 17:52 Trump's "desultory" approach to talks with Iran 21:16 Alan's experience negotiating with the Iranians 24:33 How Obama managed to get a deal 29:34 Iran's focus on projecting strength 32:23 Does Iran really want a bomb? 34:57 Iran's dim view of international law

Recorded July 3, 2025.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Non-Zero World.
0:04.1	I'm your host, Connor Eccles.
0:08.6	Each week, I break down the latest developments in U.S. foreign policy and other global news,
0:14.3	and I interview a leading expert or activist.
0:17.0	To gain access to full-length episodes and other exclusive content,
0:27.1	become an NZN member today at Robert Wright's Non-Zero Newsletter at NONZero.org.
0:31.5	Hey, Alan, how you doing?
0:32.8	Good, Connor. How you doing?
1:13.1	Pretty good. Why don't I go ahead and introduce us? I am Connor Eccles, the managing editor of Non Zero. This is, of course, Non Zero World, the weekend edition of the Non Zero podcast. And I'm very excited to be joined today by Alan Eyre, who you have a very interesting background. It's great because we're going to be talking today about the sort of crisis between the U.S. and Iran, a bit of the history of diplomatic negotiations. And you were actually a core member of the team that negotiated the initial nuclear deal with Iran. I think you were a member of that team all the way from like 2010 to 2015 and participated throughout that and of course spent most of your career as a diplomat and you are now at the
1:19.0	Middle East Institute as a distinguished diplomatic fellow. Have I covered the full background?
1:24.7	Do you think there's anything else?
1:26.2	That's it. You've had everything.
1:28.2	All right. Well, I'm glad. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time. And there's,
1:31.9	there's so much to dig into with you about this. I want to talk about what's currently
1:37.1	happening. I want to talk about your experience in those initial talks years ago and how that
1:43.5	might inform how we think about things going
1:46.7	forward. But first, I kind of just wanted to start off by asking, you know, over the past
1:52.3	three weeks, it's been a bit of a whirlwind. We had, you know, Israel launching its attacks.
1:58.9	Then Trump decides to join in. And then suddenly the Trump administration
2:03.3	has pulled back and is saying that perhaps it wants diplomacy, perhaps it wants to bomb Iran again.
2:08.5	Who's to say? I'm guess I'm just curious to start. Do you think that there is a path back to
2:15.7	the negotiating table after everything that's just happened? Well, I think there's is a path back to the negotiating table after everything that's just happened?
	...

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