MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran began and ended today in Geneva. The goal - to reach a deal on Tehran's nuclear program. That did not happen. More talks are coming. That is, according to Oman, the country that's mediating the back and forth between the U.S. and Iran. But meanwhile, we are still looking at a massive U.S. military buildup in the Middle East. So where do things go from here? I put that to NPR's Greg Myre on our weekly national security podcast, Sources & Methods, and we also made room at the table for our Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman.
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GREG MYRE, BYLINE: You could probably break it down just very briefly into sort of three options. One, they keep talking and negotiating. Today is just the third round of the current talks, and previous talks have gone on much longer. Iran says it would prefer a deal. Trump says he would prefer a deal, so nothing could keep them from continuing to talk, No 1.
No. 2 would be a limited option, maybe something somewhat similar to what we saw last June. The U.S. and/or Israel bombs for a day or a couple days but stops there and doesn't go on. Or the big option, go big - a long, open-ended, sustained campaign, perhaps aimed at regime change. If you don't have ground troops, you're kind of hoping the regime collapses.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Well, he...
MYRE: You're not going to be able...
BOWMAN: ...Well, listen...
MYRE: ...To force it.
BOWMAN: I mean, here's the other thing. People talk about regime change. They toss that out. This is a very strong regime. It's been around since 1979. If they kill the leadership, another leader will go in its place. The Revolutionary Guard is very strong, and the opposition in Iran is fractured. The sense of regime change - when people toss that out, walk me through how exactly that happens with this strong regime.
KELLY: I'm just trying to figure out what is driving and informing President Trump's thinking here. Do we know who is the hawk in Washington who is driving all this? Like, who's making the case for this massive military buildup?
MYRE: That's a good question that I've been asking myself and others, and it's not absolutely clear. There is a sense that some of this is happening by default, that Iran really wasn't on the front burner, and the protests began. And so the administration started talking about it and moving military hardware into the region and now finds itself in the position of, well, if we don't get a deal, I guess we have to do something. Trump has certainly talked about it, saying regime change would be his preferred outcome, but you don't necessarily see it. I mean, he's clearly talking to Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who are doing the negotiating, but you don't get the sense they're pushing for a military option.
KELLY: Let me land us here. Whatever is driving this, whoever is driving this, I do want to just consider the stakes, the possibility that whatever the U.S.'s next move is, it risks a spiral of further escalation. I mean, for either of you, just sketch out the scenario where a limited strike could become something much bigger in a region that is perpetually on edge already.
BOWMAN: Well, again, what does a limited strike look like? If you're going to go back and hit the same target you did last June...
KELLY: But I just mean Iran has proxies still. They're weaker...
BOWMAN: Oh, no. You know...
KELLY: ...Than they were, but you...
BOWMAN: That's a good point.
KELLY: ...Start getting into something that could be much bigger than Iran.
BOWMAN: No. There's absolutely - that's a really good point, that you have Iranian proxies in Iraq. The Iranian militias could go after U.S. forces in a rebel (ph). You could have Hezbollah in Lebanon attack Israel. You could do terrorist activities in Europe with some of these Iranian-backed people, right? That's quite possible.
MYRE: Iran still has a lot of ballistic missiles. It fired them at Israel and U.S. bases last year. It could certainly do that again. The U.S. and Israel can shoot them down, but it's challenging, and there's no guarantee. One of those missiles could get through, cause extensive damage in Israel, hit a U.S. base, hit a U.S. ship. That would probably lead to calls for further escalation. And beyond a conflict, an actual larger war, there's all sorts of other things that could happen - the disruption of oil flows in and out of the Gulf. So you could see an expansion in many, many different directions that you can even think about and plan for, but you just don't know if it's going to happen. And we've seen this volatility in this region many, many times before.
KELLY: That was NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre, along with Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman. We were talking on Sources & Methods, our national security podcast. We covered a lot more this week, and you can hear it wherever you get your podcasts. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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