we re seeing happen on the ground. he s got to take ownership. arthel: so the blame game in full swing in washington. but in afghanistan, the president has fled his country. the american flag has been lowered over our embassy in kabul which has been evacuated. our coverage of the taliban takeover of afghanistan continues now, and joining us right now is rebecca grant, national security and military analyst, also president of iris independent research. so, dr. grant, as the biden administration scrambles to deal with this disaster, what is the best move president biden can make at this juncture, and what is the worst move he can make right now? yes. the u.s. military has a really important job right now, actually two jobs. one, nato forces are still controlling the airport in kabul. the u.s. military has to help with that. believe me, every drone in the middle east is now staring attica bull and at afghanistan at kabul and at
iris independent research. think we were their insight to break this all down for us. fairly serious development, operating the secondary circuit, it doesn t violate the nuclear deal, but in practice it would get tehran closer to where they potentially would like to be witches weapons grade level action. your thoughts on this development? that s right and iran s regime is a bunch of thugs who like to use conflict. here is the deal with the iraq heavy water reactor. it was really at the center of the deal. it was inch by inch using nuclear blackmail starting the secondary site there trying to pressure the europeans to give them financial sanctions relief and breakup the u.s. european alliance. they are continuing that nuclear
we are seeing it flood out into the streets. arthel? arthel: thank you, benjamin. eric? eric: could these protests finally led to a tipping point to topple the dictatorship as the opposition is gaining strength? national security military analysis and president of iris independent research. doctor, we just heard protests in streets, chants of death to the dictator. how widespread do you believe this dissatisfaction and the anger by the iranian people against the ruling regime? eric, this was really the last straw raising the gasoline prices. iran subsidizes gasoline and to see them go up 50% and in some cases 300%, really the last straw. and it shows us how powerful the u.s. maximum pressure policy has been. i don t think rouhani wanted to do this, but he s had no choice in reacting to that maximum pressure policy. eric: so do you think this is a direct result of the trump administration policies, the
role in the capture of an iranian tanker earlier this month. meanwhile the u.s. and iran are at odds after the u.s. claimed a navy warship destroyed an iranian drone but toronto is it never happened. lots of back-and-forth here. he would thus international relations expert and president of iris independent research, thank you for being here today. thank you. laura: we talk about the uk and u.s. response on this, this tanker war is being called, again as many more countries are keeping a close eye on excluding situation. what can you tell us on that front? specifically, hit you keeping an eye on the russians response. that s right. possible the tanker were his back. the hijacking has pushed britain and france and germany a little bit closer to the u.s. position and i think was really new today is that now britain is out in the lead with their foreign secretary saying there will be action considered but
let s talk about it with rebecca grant. president of iris independent research. you suggest that iran is trying to win the sympathy of the rest of the world here in defying the united states. how are they doing with that? they are not doing very well. so specifically iran is using nuclear blackmail against europe. britain, france and germany have set up an alternate mechanism and iran wants to use that. iran s strategy is to use europe to try to get around the u.s. financial sanctions. with this threat they re threatening publicly for the first time to breach the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal. jon: that alternate banking system is designed to help the iranian people, right? allow for humanitarian shipments and that kind of thing? that s right. britain, france and germany, part of the deal, set it up for two reasons. one to allow food and medicine and also to see if this would