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 silence about a peace deal with Iran that was supposed to happen following Trump's long meeting in the White House Situation Room on Friday.

Thanks to Trump's stupidity and Netanyahu's mendacity, Iran now holds more cards, in particular the prize that Trump gave the

Muller's, the Strait of Hamuz.

Joining us to discuss the stalemate and possible ways forward is Mosin Malani, the Executive

Director of the World Center for Strategic and Diplomatic Studies and Professor

Politics at the University of South Florida.

Professor Malani has served as a fellow at Harvard, Oxford and Foscarre University in Italy

and is the author of The Making of Iran's Islamic Revolution.

And his latest book is Iran's rise and rivalry with the US in the Middle East.

Then we'll look into the spectacular corruption Trump and his with the US in the Middle East.

Then we'll look into the spectacular corruption Trump and his family are engaged in as they

monetize the presidency, as well as the administration's weaponization of law enforcement

in the service of the Silicon Valley billionaire bros like Peter Thiel to criminalize critics of AI who oppose the

data centers being built to service this unpopular technology.

Joining us is Daniel Boggislaw, an investigative reporter based in Washington, D.C., whose

interests includes corporate corruption, congressional and White House investigations,

American influence overseas, and organized labor.

And he has an article, at Wired Magazine we will discuss.

U.S. law enforcement warns of anti-tech extremism as AI hatred grows.

Then finally we'll speak with Stephen Walt, a columnist at Foreign Policy

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