Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.

I'm Ian Masters. And today we'll look into a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with the U.S. Israeli war in Iran expanding into Lebanon after a few Hezbollah rockets aimed at Israel were met by a punishing Israeli retaliation.

Joining us to assess what further suffering the people of Iran and Lebanon have in store

is the Nassi Kambanis, a senior

fellow at the Century Foundation and director of the Center for International Research

and Policy.

Until recently, he worked as a journalist based in Lebanon, and his books include A Privilege

to Die inside Hezbollah's legions in their endless war against Israel, and most recently,

Shia power comes of age, the transformation of Islamist politics in Iraq 2003.

And he has an article in the Century Foundation we will discuss,

attacking Iran is a guaranteed disaster.

Then with Trump's excuse for going to war against Iran to

end a nuclear weapons program that could strike the US, he claimed he had already

obliterated, we will speak with Darrell Kimball, the Executive Director of the Arms

Control Association and publisher and contributor for the organization's monthly journal, Arms Control, Today.

For more than two decades, he has led the organization's research and policy advocacy on a range of issues,

including cancellation of new nuclear weapons programs and the conclusion of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

His latest article in Arms Control today we will discuss is Trump's

chaotic and reckless Iran nuclear policy. Then finally we'll examine the underlying folly of

Operation Epic Fury, which in Washington circles is now referred to as Operation Epstein Fury,

and look into how tactical success by air power does not translate

...