We return now to the state of the war with Iran and the diplomatic efforts to end it.

For that, we get two perspectives.

Ray Takai is a senior State Department advisor on Iran during the Obama administration.

He's now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

He was born and raised in Iran, but moved to the United States just after the revolution in 1979.

And Alan Eyre served on the U.S. government for four decades.

He was part of the Obama administration's negotiating team for the Iran nuclear deal, which President Trump pulled out of in 2018.

He's now at the Middle East Institute.

Alan, I'd like to start with you. We've seen this exchange of proposals, at 15 points from the United States, five points from Iraq.

What's from Iran? What's going on here? Well, I think each side is floating its maximalist red lines.

So the other side is up to date on what it would take to begin to wind down this war.

The bad news is that these red lines are even farther apart than they were before the war started.

So no direct negotiations, but messages are being passed.

Ray, how do you see it?

I think Alan is right that at this particular point, a diplomatic agreement is not

apparent, given how far apart these points are. But the very fact that both parties are offering points of negotiations,

however maximalists or even absurd they may be,

perhaps indicates a propensity to look for some sort of an off-ramp

in an impasse that they both find themselves.

Alan, you say there's unlikely to be a diplomatic solution, but are they at least going to talk and negotiate?

Oh, there won't be direct negotiations. I find that highly improbable. The foreign minister of Iran just today said direct negotiations are out of the question.

And there won't be a ceasefire because Iran loses momentum if they have a ceasefire

...