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Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics, power, and prejudices.

This year, 2024, is an election year in America, a presidential election year.

And so we will be doing two podcasts a week, rather than our usual one, because we want to,

and because we know you can't get enough Americano in your life. I am delighted to be joined today by the diplomat and author Dennis B. Ross, who worked

under President H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton and was a special advisor on the Persian Gulf.

And we're going to be talking about the most dramatic story of the week, which is, of course,

the escalation of tensions in the Middle East.

Dennis, Joe Biden is getting a lot of flack right and left on his foreign policy in the

Middle East this week.

And it does seem a lot like he keeps saying things to people,

like he says to Iran, don't do something, and they do it.

And he says to Israel, show restraint, and they don't.

Is it fair to say America is losing its ability to shape events in the Middle East?

Well, I guess what I would say is this is not the first time we've told countries either to do something or not to do something and they haven't responded to us. So as if the US has always been able to sort of dictate what others will do, that's never been true, number one.

Number two, it is fair to say that the U.S. power is more

constrained than it's been historically. It's fair to say that we are not the Uber power. This is

not a unipolar world, but there is no other country that is more

powerful in the United States. And there's probably no other country that is as influential

...