For additional perspective on the state of diplomacy with Iran, we turn now to our two Iran

watchers.

Alan Ayers' work at the State Department focused on Iran, and he was a senior member of

the Obama administration's negotiating team for the Iran nuclear deal.

He's now at the Middle East Institute.

And Miyadh-Maliki was born and raised in Iran, and until last year he was associate director for sanctioned targeting in the U.S. Treasury Department with a focus on Iran. He's now a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Welcome back to you both. Good to see you. Mia, they'll begin with you. It looks like the U.S. delegation is set to go to Pakistan tomorrow to resume talks. The question is, will the Iranians

be there? Will they show up? Well, based on reportings, I see Iranians are sending a delegation.

That's the last reporting that I've seen coming out of Iran. You know, it's very obvious that

they know they need a deal. I mean, they might still shout openly or through the press that they

don't really need a deal, but economically and politically, they really desperately need a deal right now.

So they're going in search of a deal. You think they're motivated to do?

They're definitely. I mean, their economy is on the, I mean, it's a collapsed, bankrupt economy.

They're getting there. They have a few days before they run out of gasoline, between 12 to 20 days, if they

can't import gasoline. And last time they had to change the price on gasoline, increase the price

on gasoline. They had one of the largest protests in Iran. So they know domestically they're going

to have to address the state of economy. Alan, did the U.S. attacking and boarding that ship?

Did it change leverage at all for the U.S.?

Change how these talks could go on?

I don't think so.

I mean, it possibly increased, it increased the possibility that the Iranians wouldn't go.

But as Miyadh said, they have to show up at the table just to see what the U.S. is doing.

So again, both sides, each side wants to enter with sort of the marginal additional leverage

...