Is Iran really making a nuclear bomb?

The News Agents

Global

Daily News, News, Government, Politics

4.2 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Later on this episode we’re joined by author of 'Sapiens' and 'Nexus' - Yuval Noah Harari - to talk politics and AI. But we begin with war.

The speed of the escalation between Iran, Israel, and the US has been staggering. Trump is flirting with entering a war he doesn’t want, with an enemy he may not be able to control. At the heart of this conflict are questions over Iran’s ability to make nuclear weapons. Netanyahu believes it’s an imminent threat. Trump’s own administration didn’t believe this back in March.

So what’s actually changed? And is Iran actually nuclear ready? We discuss with Iranian analyst and former state department advisor Vali Nasr.

The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity.
0:09.4	This is a global player original podcast.
0:12.8	How many people living around, by the way?
0:14.5	I don't know the population.
0:16.1	At all?
0:17.0	No, I don't know the population.
0:19.2	You don't know the population in the country you seek to topple?
0:23.3	How many people living around?
0:24.5	92 million.
0:25.2	Okay.
0:26.6	Yeah.
0:27.0	How could you not know that?
0:29.4	I don't sit around memorizing population tables.
0:32.3	Well, it's kind of relevant because you're calling for the overthrow of the government.
0:35.9	Why is it relevant, whether it's 90 million or 80 million or 100 million? Why is that relevant? If you don't know anything
0:41.0	about the country. I didn't say I don't know anything about that. Okay, what's the ethnic mix of
0:43.9	Iran? They are Persians and predominantly Shia. Okay. That's the former Fox News host, Tucker
0:52.7	Carlson, grilling the Texas Senator Ted Cruz,
0:56.9	about why he knows so little about the country he's advocating that Trump now bombs.
1:03.3	And it opens up a very big question, which is why America is even thinking, even talking, even suggesting it might get dragged in to this whole fresh crisis in the Middle East.
1:17.3	Is it just possible that Benjamin Netanyahu has played not just one US president in Joe Biden, but is playing a second in Donald Trump, that maybe Iran, contrary to what he's saying,
1:29.5	actually is nowhere near obtaining nuclear weapons at all.
	...

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