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Welcome to the commentary magazine The Ellie Podcast today is Wednesday April 7th 2021.

I'm John Pondhort, the editor of commentary magazine.

Go to commentarymagazine.com where we give you a few free reads and ask you to subscribe.

You can also buy our merch at there. Just look for the word merch in the in the banner at the top

and you'll see what you can get with me as always executive editor Abe Greenwald Hyde.

Hyde John. Senior writer Christine Rosen. Hyde Christine. Hyde John.

And associate editor Noah Rothman. So Noah, you have some thoughts on the US, Iran.

There's some interesting news yesterday suggesting that Israel is taking a more aggressive

conventional approach to the threat from Iran. A retaliatory strike using means where I'm not

sure we knew they had. Anyway, Noah, please. Yeah, what you're describing is apparently

something that's been ongoing for some time but hasn't gotten a lot of press in the west and

it's recently getting more ink I think as a result of the ongoing negotiations and being at

to restart the Iran deal to JCP OA apparently. Israel took credit for a limpet mine strike on a ship

strike that is supposed to be in this Iranian commercial ship that is largely perceived to be

even in the press, perceived to be this front for weapons and for just disrupting the region.

And yeah, so this is framed as Israel striking back against Iran and having some

insurance in the event that a deal is struck in Vienna. And there's not a whole lot to talk about

when it comes to Vienna right now. The negotiations are ongoing. It's described as productive,

which is to say that nothing is actually happening. That's diplomatic speak for where just sort of

in the room and talking. And they're not even actually in the room. You have Iranian negotiators

at one hotel, an American negotiator's at a hotel across the street and the European

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