Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org, I'm Ian Masters,

and today we'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with the global impact of the Trump-Netanyahu War on Iran as energy prices

rise steeply after Israel's strike on Iran's major gas field and Iran's retaliation against

Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Joining us is David Hurst, the editor of the Middle East Eye, who was formerly the chief foreign leader, writer of the Guardian, and its former associate foreign editor, European editor,

Moscow Bureau chief, European correspondent, and Ireland correspondent.

We will discuss his article at Middle East Eye,

why Trump and Netanyahu are the most dangerous men on the planet.

Then as US Marine Expeditionary Forces head to the Gulf for undefined missions,

we'll speak with Harrison Mann, Associate Director for Policy and Campaigns at Win Without War.

His advocacy and public commentary focuses on reforming U.S. Middle East policy and illuminating the connections between foreign and domestic policy.

Harrison is a former U.S. Army Major assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency who resigned in protest of DOD support

for the Israel military during its war on Gaza. We will discuss his article at Responsible

Statecraft, seizing Iran's crown jewel would be a suicide mission. An operation to hold Tehran's oil hostage by taking over Kaga Island

would end up delivering the regime hostages of its own.

Then finally we'll speak with Mike Lofgren, who formerly spent 28 years working in Congress as a Republican aide,

16 of which as a senior national security analyst on the House and

Senate budget committees. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller. The party is over,

how Republicans went crazy, Democrats became useless, and the middle class got shafted.

And he has an article at the Washington Monthly, Asymmetrical War in Iran,

how Trump and the US are being played. We're depleting our big, expensive Cold War-inspired

...