You're listening to Robert Wright's Non-Zero podcast. You're listening to Robert Wright's Non-Zero Podcast.

Hi, Josh.

Hi, Bob.

Always good to be back.

Always good to have you.

Let me introduce this.

I'm Robert Wright, publisher, Non-Zero Newsletter, which, by the way, the latest issue of that has a piece that's very relevant to what Josh and I are going to talk about today.

You, Josh, are a professor at the University of Oklahoma.

Well, you teach you about the Middle East.

You're also director of the Center for Middle East Studies there.

And you are one of the foremost experts in America, I would say, in the Middle East.

And also, you know, one of the most kind of candid and straightforward commentators on the Middle East, I would say.

And so it's always a pleasure to have you on, although often world circumstances are not pleasurable to behold when I'm having you on because you tend to show up when things are falling apart.

That's not a coincidence.

That's when I ask you to come on.

Now, let me explain that we're going to talk about something that's very fluid,

which is to say the conflict between Israel and Iran.

There's a possibility that there will be important developments between the time we record

and the time we post.

So I'm going to tell you where we are now.

And then we're going to talk about things that will remain relevant and illuminating

regardless of what's happened.

...