This is CBSI in the world.

I'm John Betts with my colleague and friend Malcolm Holine, Conference of Presidents, Iran,

the suspect nuclear weapons program of Iran, the brain of the octopus attacking Israel and peace in the Middle East, Iran.

We welcome our colleague, Dr. David Albright, the author of

Iran's, author of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. It's available at Amazon, a perilous

pursuit as well. David, a very good evening to you.

The perilous pursuit took an odd turn in these last days,

and maybe it's a rumor, maybe not, but it was in headlines,

that Washington, the Trump administration,

perhaps even Mr. Trump, had contacted Moscow,

the Kremlin, perhaps even Mr. Putin, to ask for mediation between Washington and Tehran.

Why this struck me as odd is maximum pressure is said to be back on, and the Iranian economy is collapsed, and the leadership is blame shifting.

So how is the appeal, if it happened to

Mr. Putin, make sense of the threat of nuclear weapons? Last time I checked, Moscow's a lot

closer to Tehran than Washington is. Yeah, I think it's more than a rumor. I mean, you never know with what President Trump does with regard to what he says. But it's another disturbing sign that, yes, there's maximum pressure and quite a few threats toward Iran.

But at the same time, you know, Trump is playing with this idea of settling this and

preventing a war.

And I don't believe that Russia could mediate this in any way except to favor Iran, which

would inflame Israel. So I think it's another sign that the U.S. policy is adrift because the

head of it sends contradictory signals.

Malcolm?

When we see that Iran's economy, something John and I have tried to follow,

...