Has Keir Starmer's Iran Response Been Too Slow?

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

Self-directed investing, trading, full service wealth management, automated investing, financial

planning, thematic investing, retirement planning, few, and to think. That's just a small

taste of what Schwab offers. Because Schwab knows that when it comes to your finances, choice matters.

No matter your goals, investing style, life stage or experience,

Schwab has everything you need, all in one place, so you can invest your way.

Visit Schwab.com to learn more.

This podcast is sponsored by PocketHose. I'm a mom and a homeowner, so I feel like I'm always

outside using a hose for something, and I used to go through a new hose every year because of

kings and tangles. I'm definitely not gentle with my hose. I drag it across the driveway

around the yard, and I just wanted something that's easy and durable. That's why the PocketHose

Ballistic has honestly been such a great upgrade for me. It's super lightweight, easy to manage,

and easy to store. You turn the water on and it grows, and when you turn the water off,

it shrinks back down to pocket size, and I love that it's reinforced with a liquid crystal polymer

used in bulletproof vests, so it feels really tough and long-lasting. For a limited time,

when you purchase a new PocketHose Ballistic, you'll get a free 360-degree rotating pocket pivot

and a free thumb drive nozzle. Go to pockethose.com slash podcast. That's pockethose.com slash podcast

for your two free gifts with purchase pockethose.com slash podcast.

Hello, we're going to focus, as usual, on the US Israel war against Iran and the various

consequences being felt around the world. There was a big political angle today here in the UK,

because Keir Starmer did a press conference from Downing Street just after lunchtime,

and a few things emerged from that. Then, of course, there's the ongoing events around the region,

Iran's neighbors being hit by Iran and continued military action on quite a big scale by the US

and Israel, particularly focused on the Iranian capital, Tehran. We're going to be joined by one of

the BBC's foremost military experts who's going to give us a proper cast, a complete assessment

of the situation today. That's our newscast. Newscast. Newscast from the BBC.

Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio. And it's Jane in the newscast studio.

And also sitting with us is Mikey Kay from the BBC's security brief. Hello, Mikey.

Very good afternoon. We will get some hardcore military data from you shortly. So thank you for

being here. Pleasure. But first of all, we're going to check in with today's politics, because we're

joined by Lucy Fisher, host of the FT's political fix podcast. Hello, Lucy.

Hi, Adam. Great to join you. Thanks for being here. Also, you used to be the defence editor at the

times as well. So you've got lots of lots of a back catalog to draw on. Yes, that is theoretically

right. Yes, well, that's a test. So it's quarter to five on Thursday afternoon.

Just after lunchtime today, lots of our Westminster colleagues were scrambled to the dining

street press briefing room for a press conference from the Prime Minister. Lucy, why do you think

Starmer wanted to address the nation like this? I think it's twofold really. I think he wants to

try and refute the accusation that he has been indecisive in the way that he's handled the UK's

position on Iran. I think there's a lot of criticism or confusion about his position that seems

to be quite contorted in a way. This idea that the UK believes that Iranian missile depots and

launches should be destroyed via strikes and that is legal, but that the UK itself is not

participating in those strikes, only approving the use of UK air bases for the US to do it.

So I think he wanted to try and explain a bit more the UK's position on that. Make clear

that it is a deliberate decision not to enter the war in an active sense to reassure people on

that front. And also, I think to give a bit of an update on what's going on with the several

hundred thousand Brits stranded in the region amid a lot of concern about what the foreign office

is doing to try and get at least the most vulnerable of those people home. Also, I mean, there's

loads of things we can pick up on, but Jane, I was struck by the PM just emphasising that this could

go on for quite a long time, and it's affecting quite a lot of people. It's more than a hundred

thousand British citizens across the region. Yeah, and of course, that was the point at which

everything changed for Kirstama, or so we believe that he didn't want to use British assets in

an offensive scenario, but in a defensive one. And he's obviously said that this was because Iran

started to attack so many of Britain's allies, some 10 Gulf countries, in which many tens of

thousands of British people are either based or live or work or are on holiday. So that's what

made the difference for him. And yes, there are still an awful lot of them stuck in those places.

I've actually just been talking to some Brits in Dubai, who were hoping to get out tonight,

but as we were speaking, the alarms were going, missiles were coming in. I was trying to speak to

my daughter who was flying into Dubai. She was stuck at the airport. They're evacuating the

airport in Dubai because there's been apparently reported a strike on Abu Dhabi airport, which is in

the neighbouring Emirates. So it's all still very difficult for those British people and from all

other European countries who are stuck in those countries. And is your daughter doing okay?

She seems to be all right. She seems quite happy. She's having a coffee at the airport.

She can't go anywhere right now. They're evacuating apparently. She's made a, she's from a family

made of stern stuff, which does not surprise me. And then Lucy, going back to this idea of

the government's decision-making about how much to support the US or not. Tim Shipman at the

Spectator has been digging into the discussions at the National Security Council at the end of last

week and over the weekend. And he is reporting that it sounds like it was a group of cabinet

ministers led by Ed Miliband, who almost vetoed the initial use of British military bases by the US.

And it wasn't until later on on the weekend when the NSC had another go at it that they then

gave their approval. And also, Starmer was asked about this at the press conference and he did not

deny that that's what happened. I mean, he didn't confirm it, but he didn't deny it.

No, really striking the very careful answer he gave at the press conference where he tried to make

clear that the US only put in the formal legal request to use the air bases on the Saturday. But as

you say, Adam, not denying that the conversation had arisen at this important crunch meeting on the

Friday. And of course, this is really damaging for Starmer because it plays into the wide

narrative that's now become quite entrenched in Westminster, which is that his political authority

is shot, even in this matter of national security for and more. He can't really, or at least at the

beginning, couldn't really carry his cabinet with him. So he's facing resistance and pressure

internally. And of course, in the past couple of days, we've seen allies also beginning to publicly

criticise the UK's response that it's been too slow. Cyprus in particular making clear that,

you know, given that the the Brits have two military bases on the island that they are very

disappointed. The UK hadn't, you know, deployed in advance more military assets to the region to

defend the island. And we now know that HMS Dragon, a type 45 destroyer, one of the most

advanced warships in the world that has sophisticated air defence capabilities to guard against

drone and missile attacks. That won't be getting to the region of the eastern Mediterranean for

two weeks. And this is what we've already seen. A drone attack actually successfully hit one of

these RAF bases in Cyprus on Sunday and other attempted drone attacks being intercepted over Cyprus

on Monday. So it's all feeling quite slow in pace, which is another reason, I think, Stama,

wanted to tell the public today that he's sending four more typhoon jets to Qatar and to try and

give a sense of a bit more of a sense of what the UK is doing amid all this criticism.

And Mikey, do you think this deployment of British resources into the eastern Mediterranean and

other Gulf countries is quite slow or is it understandable why it's happening at this pace or actually

maybe it's going at the speed you'd expect? No, absolutely not. I'm slightly confused as to

the communication it's going on between number 10 and the Ministry of Defence because

the announcement by the Prime Minister on the US being able to use UK bases, not just in the UK,

so RAF Mullenhall, Lake and Heath, RAF Fairford, but also RAF Akateri and further afield Diego Garcia.

That was always going to initiate Iran putting those bases on the targeting list. Now Iran doesn't have

the ballistic missile range to reach the UK or France or Germany, probably eastern Europe if it

wanted to, a doubt it would do that. But it does have ballistic missile capability to hit RAF

Akateri. And so by the Prime Minister announcing this, it was always going to put RAF Akateri on the

on the target list. So it would therefore make sense to make sure you had a tiered layered air defense

system to protect RAF Akateri before you announce what the PM announced and therefore put RAF

Akateri on a targeting list. And what is that tiered system? Tiered, well, so you have to look at

what the threats are. And the threats, there's a broad spectrum of threats from ballistic missiles.

Iran has hypersonic missiles, but none of the UK or US inventory has the ability to counter

a hypersonic missile. Hypersonic missile travels faster than five times the speed of sound.

Some of them are claimed to go up to north of Mac 10. So you have hypersonics, but then you have

the stuff you can defend against our ballistic cruise missiles, aircraft, and drones.

And that's a very broad remit. So you need a lot of stuff to counter it.

Yeah, but it goes back to, so what is the stuff that we've got? We've got Orcas, which is a

non-kinetic counter UAS counter drone system. That basically uses 3D radar, jamming, and RF.

Wiggly amps to be able to either take down the drone through radio frequency or take control of

the drone. Then you've got a kinetic capability. That's called rapid century. And that uses the LMM

missile. That stands for lightweight multipurpose missile. Those missiles can also be put on the

wild cat helicopters, which we know are coming there and are coming imminently. But the problem with

that is is that when you've got the LMM, which has a range of about six to eight kilometers,

on an airborne asset, what's the problem? The airborne asset has only a specific endurance.

Let's say the helicopters' endurance is an hour. My question is therefore now, well,

how many helicopters are coming out and how do you rotate and keep those helicopters in the air

to provide 24-7 cover? I doubt you can. So therefore there's an immediate limitation.

And then more broadly, the Type 45. That's the air defense system on the Type 45. It's called

the CVage of HMS Dragon. HMS Dragon. That's got two missiles that it can use. Asso 15 and Asso 30.

The Asso 15 does about Mac 3. The Asso 30 does about Mac 4 to 4.5 with a range of 75 kilometers.

Genoa might get a mic positive there because I know Lucy's got to go because she's got lots of

deadlines and things. But Lucy, just before you go, rewinding back to our conversation and actually

rewinding quite a long way back in British political history. If it is true that Ed Miller-Band

was the one saying, let's hold back here, you shouldn't be too gung-ho. That's quite reminiscent

of when David Cameron was Prime Minister. And it was Ed Miller-Band's whipping of Labour MPs when

he was leader of the Labour Party to not support military action in Syria against Assad,

which then had a knock-on effect in Washington that meant Obama didn't carry out military action.

There's a sort of big echo there, even if we actually don't really know for definite what's

just now. I think there's a little bit of revisionism that's come in regarding what happened

over that vote regarding Syria. Because at the time Ed Miller-Band thought he could carry his

party with him. And he was actually blindsided by a lot of his backbenches. He'd given his word

to Cameron that he would back the Conservative government in that vote for intervention in Syria

after the use of chemical weapons. So in some ways, I think there is an echo here, but it's more

that another Labour leader in the past wasn't necessarily able to carry their party with them.

But what I would say just finally is that interestingly, although the Conservatives in reform

are very much taking, to my mind, quite a surprisingly hawkish view in all this and saying

the UK should be part of the war and actively getting involved in the air strikes, not just

relying on the US and for our calling Starmer's inaction pathetic. I think what Starmer, the chart

forward that he has paved, is in line with public opinion. And I know the latest polling from

UGARV shows that only 8% of people think Britain should actively be involved in the attacks.

While 46% agree that UK forces should be involved in a purely defensive operational capacity.

So it seems that Starmer here is on the same side as broad public sentiment.

Lucy, thank you very much. And I know you've got to go and record your own podcast,

political fix now. So great metaphor for journalism in 2026 from one podcast to another.

Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. And Jane, this is a bit of a revisionist question

as well and a bit vague. So I apologise in advance. But was there a world at the weekend

where people were considering an Iranian response that wasn't as dramatic as this? And so actually

you wouldn't have to think about sending more British fighter jets or a British ship to Cyprus.

Because actually Iran wouldn't have counter-attacked so strongly in so many places.

But actually Iran made it clear before the war and it made it clear last June when the original

Israeli and American strikes hit the nuclear bunkers and the nuclear facilities in Iran.

They made it clear then by hitting a US base in the aftermath. And they made it clear this time

that it was fair game. That US bases in neighbouring countries were fair game. They made that very

clear. But I think that probably nobody quite realised the extent to which they would retaliate.

The number of countries that would be involved. I mean, today even we've been told there were

strikes on Azerbaijan. There was a report yesterday of a missile heading towards Turkey and NATO

member. And I think none of this was envisaged that there would be so many countries,

some ten of them involved and so many drone and missile attacks.

Right, Mikey, let's go back to what you were saying a couple of minutes ago. So you talked about

these Shaheed drones, which are the Iranian-produced drones, but have also been used by Russia,

but you said it's a little bit more complicated than that.

Yeah, the Iranians gave the Shahed 136 blueprint to the Russians and the Russians are now

mass-producing on a serious scale. The same sort of design, it's called the Geran II.

Just to give you an idea of just how many of the producing in 2025, Russia launched over 60,000

Shaheeds on Ukraine, 60,000. The higher estimates of Iran, in terms of their capability and what

they've got, the higher estimates are around 80,000 Shaheed 136s. I will put those lower, but still

significant. So what this all comes back to is something called cost-benefit ratio.

The sea viper, the air defense system on the Type 45, those missiles, the aster's, cost

one to two million. And as Ram, which is an advanced short-range air-to-air missile,

there's currently strapped to a typhoon, it's operating on what's called drone cap, drone

combat petrol out of our Ariya Fakhetiri. That's a £300,000 per unit missile. One of these drones

cost $35,000 to $50,000. And so the Iran strategy is quite simply bankrupt the West in terms of

the cost it takes to develop these counter drone technologies and deplete their stockpiles as

quickly as possible. Because when you look at the swarming potential of the Shaheeds coming from

Iran, in other words, loads and loads going over at the same time, heaps. It's not a sophisticated

piece of equipment. It's got almost like a 1, 2, 5, 2 stroke engine. It's got a 20 to 60 kilogram

warhead, and it's made out of carbon fiber. Therefore, because it's so simple, it can be mass-produced

at scale. And it's frightening. I mean, I'm talking about people who are on the ground looking up

at these things in these various countries. They're terrified. And also, when you talk about the

cost ratio, I suppose you can't just look at the cost of using one weapon to intercept another

and working out whether it's a good value for money. You've got to look at the potential costs

of the damage done by the drone, which can also, as Jane was suggesting, have a psychological cost,

not just a financial cost for whatever warehouse or oil terminal or hotel, or hotel, you manage

the damage. Yeah, and that cycle, I was in Ukraine just before Christmas. And when you see them

flying across Kiev, that psychological component that you've just alluded to is significant.

So it's not just about the cost. It's the psychology as well. You're absolutely right.

And when you hear these things, they've got a really distinctive noise. You don't even actually

have to see one. It's just the neuro-linguistic programming of hearing it that induces fear.

I mean, in Gaza too, there's really drones. I mean, you're right. That very distinctive

noise that a drone makes is really, really imprinted in the brain and very frightening.

And I was surprised when I looked them up on the internet. I was thinking they would look like

classic drones, like bigger, scarier versions of the ones you could buy online. But actually,

they're not. They're more like little planes, aren't they? Yeah, they're about 3.5 meters long.

Traveler about 120 miles an hour. On the security brief, we covered the Ukrainians that

are using a tactic to use helicopters with guns out the side and forward looking in for red cameras

so they can see them at night. And I was given some footage by one of the military commanders that

I spoke to in Kiev. And he gave me some, what's it called, electro-optic footage. So we've got an

electro-optic camera which allows them to zoom in with really high fidelity and granularity

of this shahead that was flying at about 30 feet across the desert. And the other thing as well

is that if you want them to set this thing, you can't intercept it over an urban area because it's

going to come down and it's going to do damage. So they've got to wait for their time and intercept it

at the right point and intercept it and then target it and shoot it down over an area where they

know it's not going to be collateral damage. And if you're seeing shaheads come into Bahrain or

into Dubai, that's a significantly built up area. And if you're relying on a Patriot missile system

which again costs about 1 to 2 million per missile to take out 20 drones, there's going to be at

least 10 of them to get through because the Patriots will go the code word in the military's called

Winchester. That's not classified. But Winchester means that you're out of solvows. There's nothing left.

But what you've just run out of intercepting missiles. Yeah. That's called Winchester. You've

gone Winchester. Could be anything. Could be running out of ammunition for a gun. Could be running out of

missile. Why? Winchester. What have they got against Winchester? Winchester rifles? What's the

Winchester? There's just there's lots of code words we use in the military. This is a public

school thing. Yeah. For the viewers. I used to fly assault helicopters in the military and we

used to do the targeted capture of kill and arcade. And so there's all sorts of terminology. I

used to run the top guns call for helicopters in the UK. And so there are lots of code words you

use for brevity when you're flying because things can happen quite quickly when you're flying.

And Winchester's mind boggled. So that's Iran's very effective drone capacity. You've sort of

hinted at this already, but they're missiles. I mean, we sort of threw around the word

missile. What are we actually talking about in terms of what Iran has got? Yeah. I mean,

you just have to look at the footage over Tel Aviv at the moment and you'll see a considerable

amount of ballistic missiles coming in. What I'm trying to do, what I'm trying to identify and

interrogate by looking at that footage, is the capability of Iran in terms of the hypersonic

missile, which is the fatter one and the fatter two. The fatter one isn't as sophisticated as

the fatter two. The fatter one goes hypersonic in the terminal phase of its delivery, which means

when it's on the downslope. What's interesting about the fatter two is we think it's got what got

what's called the hypersonic glide vehicle. And you're looking at me as if to say what the hell is

that? So hypersonic glide vehicle is sat on top of the booster, so the rocket. And when the warhead

separates inside the hypersonic glide vehicle very high in the atmosphere, the normal trajectory

of a ballistic missile is a parabolic. And so interceptors find it much easier because they can

look at where the missile is, look at the parabolic trajectory of it. And it's just geometry.

In fact, AI geometry and it makes what we call PK probability of kill much, much higher. But these

hypersonic glide vehicles or hypersonic glide bodies as they're being called has the ability to

steer itself once it leaves the booster, which means it's virtually impossible to target. And as far

as I'm aware, there are no currently in service counter systems to our hypersonic that the US or

any Western capability has. And of course, Jane, one of the reasons this conflict is happening and

Trump has said this a few times is because of Iran's missile capability and stopping it from

getting any better. Yeah. And obviously we've heard different war aims coming from the Americans

from different members of the administration all week. But pretty consistently in the last

couple of days, it's been about their ballistic missile capability and the sense that the Americans

tell us that they were building that up. The Israelis agree with that and that action needed to

be taken. So yeah, I mean, ballistic missiles as well as the nuclear threat are right up there

in terms of war aims for America and for Israel to degrade them to the point where they're no

longer effective. And that's sorry, that's just a really important point that James just made is

terminology is really important. We heard Trump say after Operation Midnight Hammer, which was the

12th day war last year, he's coming out with his terminology like obliterated, destroyed.

What what was just said there was degrade and it's degrade is the maximum that is possible

Iran's ballistic missile program unless you target holistically what it takes to make ballistic

missiles. An example of that is ammonium percolate is a chemical that comes in from China on

super tankers that goes into Iranian ports and then is taken to a factory to the east of Taran

to make the solid fuel propellant that goes into the ballistic missiles. So if you're not targeting

the components of what makes a ballistic missile, which are the engines, the warheads,

the solid fuel propellant, so on and so forth, then Iran's ability to be able to make more of these

is going to be untouched. And that leaves out the know-how, the scientists, the designs,

the blueprints. These are the things that are impossible to destroy unless, as happened in the

June war, you take out the scientists, you kill the people that with the know-how, but impossible

to take all of them out. And as you say, it's the ingredients, if you like, or the components,

it's the know-how and it's the blueprints. But maybe that's what Pete Hegseth,

the defense, the war secretary, and Donald Trump have been getting out when they say this is just

the start and actually they're going to go further and they're going to go deeper into the country.

Maybe all their targets have been quite security focused and quite obviously military and quite

obviously leadership-based. Maybe we're going to go into a phase where it's more factories and

warehouses and roads and- And underground bunkers. Yeah, the less military targets.

I mean, Mike, I'm sure, knows more about this, but a lot of the ballistic missile factories,

and indeed the launcher, you know, they keep them underground. They're not, they have mobile

launchers and a lot of those have been taken out. So we've been told by the Israelis and the Americans,

but a lot of the manufacturers underground and they are keeping them underground.

Jane, this conversation's been very kind of hard, we're heavy, but you've been learning a bit more

or hearing a bit more from the Israelis about the human side of their war. Well, the intelligence

side, I mean, there was a briefing last night from the IDF, the Israeli military. And I think

it became apparent from that military officer said that they had been told or they understood

from the political level in Israel that three weeks before the war that they were heading for

another confrontation with Iran. So they were really gearing up at that point. And also they,

I think the Israelis wanted to sort of emphasize because there has been some debate about

who bounced who into this war. Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, said that Israel had made it

impossible for the U.S. to do anything other than hit Iran because they were going to do it anyway.

And he was worried that Iran would hit back at the States. Donald Trump said different things.

So I think for the Israelis, they wanted to prove that they're hand in glove with the Americans.

And they said that they there was such was the level of integration with the U.S. military

in the run up to that first strike on the 28th of February on the leadership compound that they

actually not only were talking at the highest level every day, but that they were the U.S.

and the Israeli war rooms were synchronized in real time to allow for immediate adjustments based

on the Iranian reactions at that point when that very crucial from their point of view from

the Israeli and American point of view when that strike happened. And I think intriguingly

this official added that the idea and the U.S. had deliberately projected an image that the

Israeli military was standing down for the weekend because it was Friday night over Saturday,

which is the weekend for Israel and indeed in many Arab countries and indeed Friday is a

holiday in Iran. And so they deliberately as he put it released photographs and information

suggesting that IDF staff and senior commanders were going home for Shabbat dinner.

That's the sort of Friday night dinner to lull the Iranians into a sense of well it's not going

to happen. It's not going to happen over the weekend. And if it did happen, I think their feeling

was it would happen at night. And of course it happened on Saturday morning when all those

top leaders were meeting in terror. In broad daylight. I think it's also important to also acknowledge

that there are suggestions that U.S. intelligence official that had informed the Pentagon that there

was no imminent threat. And the threat was more an existential threat from ballistic missiles

and the potential for enrichment of uranium. And more a long term thing rather than it's about

to happen. And Christian Fraser myself were outside the talks in Geneva last Thursday of which

again there's a trend here. Operation Midnight Hammer, they were a day off from talks with

the Iranians and they and they shrank them. This time they were a day into talks and they

and a couple of days later they shrank them. And in June they said, Trump said you've got

10 days to sort this out and in two days the bombing started. And I think you know we really

that's still a very murky period that those few weeks as you said they were I also understand

that the briefing to the American administration was that there was no imminent threat. Obviously

negotiations were going on. But the Israelis clearly saw and obviously if we believe this briefing

with the Americans that there was a window of opportunity these these top leadership was

meeting that Saturday morning and they decided to go for it. And then we comment on those reports

and I think it was in the FT a couple of days ago another plug for the financial times that

the Israelis had hacked all the traffic cameras in terror and they'd been recording the footage

for years. I think they yeah what they were doing was bringing together that data to know where

the bodyguards were that were with the leaders and the top defense officials who were going

who parked their cars where who was in the building who where they were moving around and they got

that because they had hacked all the you know facilities that would enable them to gather that data

and to create this very complex picture. And that is why I think that from their point of view

that this was a moment that they couldn't afford to let pass. Yeah I mean in the intelligence

community they call that partner life. So it's understanding the behavioral tendencies of the

target that you're going at. What is usually applied to what's called TST time sensitive targeting

on high value leadership such as the itola and the heads of the IRGC. But that goes across the

entirety of what the main three tiers of intelligence are. Human human intelligence which is from

informants imagery intelligence. Imment which is usually from geo intelligence satellites or

MQ-9 reapers drones. And then you've got e-lints electronic intelligence and we saw in the buildup

of US military capability an asset called the RC-135 which is the same as the KC-135 tank. It's the

same airframe but it's jam packed full of electronic capability that can listen look at radio

frequencies understand where certain capability is. So it's building up that intelligence picture

but I think one of them you know talking about sort of the what trick of the strike and the

initiation of the strike and what we haven't spoken about is the the legality of it all. You

know US Congress hasn't voted on this. The Senate have just supported it but that's what five days

on. There's nothing from the United Nations Security Council not that there not that there would

be a resounding unanimous vote on a security council resolution but for the audit trail you know

it's good to have who voted for who abstained and who didn't and the Gulf Corporation Council

in the Arab countries did not buy into it because they knew what the consequences was going to be.

So when it comes to the UK getting involved in case time are getting involved you know there's a

there's a huge question on the the the the legality of it you just got to go back to 2003 and the

votes that went through Parliament on the the legality of the UK getting involved in the offer

that went into securing a UN resolution. Yes before action. Before action critically.

We were talking about the strike on the leadership compound over the weekend and Jane there's

a little bit more kind of analysis about what Trump might be thinking about who will be the new

kind of leadership structure for for Iran and it's the website Axios just as we started recording

this episode they put up a story saying that that Trump wants to be personally involved in choosing

a successor to Ayatollah Khameini. Yeah I think he he he said we've got to essentially approve

of and who who has chosen and he made it very clear that the son of Ayatollah Khameini would not

be acceptable is is the phrase he used but what would be acceptable is a sort of delsy and what he

was talking of course about delsy Rodriguez the who was the president of Venezuela who who was

essentially put in place after Maduro was removed by Trump's action now to Trump that's the perfect

scenario you remove a troublesome top person but you leave the rest of it in place and you find

someone you can work with and of course in Venezuela everyone was a bit doubtful that the Americans

could work with delsy Rodriguez but it turns out that so far and in return obviously for America

receiving the oil revenues from Venezuela it has worked but I think it's it's quite optimistic

of President Trump to think that he might find a a delsy in Iran who who would that be and he

has also said that they have killed most of the people they were potentially thinking of as

becoming leaders after the after Khameini so I'm not sure what he's obviously casting around for

someone that would suit the American view of what Iran looks like post this war but how easy is

that going to be Mikey thank you very much would you like to do a plug for the security brief

I would love to we're filming that's your fee for this yeah that was number of that yeah security

we have our own playlist now on YouTube we'll be filming an update on Iran tomorrow that will

go out on air tomorrow it'll be played across the weekend it'll be cut for YouTube and it'll be

available on YouTube hopefully by tomorrow evening lots of chances to watch it and Jane thanks to you too

thank you Adam and that's all for this episode of newscast in the next one Jane will be back accompanied

by Leastu Set and Chris Mason to answer your questions about the conflict we have been reporting

on all this week so that will be the next episode of newscast heading your way very soon bye bye newscast

newscast from the BBC well thank you for making it to the end of another newscast you clearly

ooze stamina can I gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC sounds and then without having

to do anything else our meandering chats will miraculously make its way to your phone

dog grooming genius here most people see a busy dog salon but I see operational excellence

thanks to genius from global payments scheduling personalized checkouts instant absolutely genius

from game day crowds to every groomer in this shop genius keeps everything flowing seamlessly

schnauzer style flawless execution big league reliability for any business that's genius