While diplomats whisper in Omani palaces beneath slow-turning ceiling fans, Iranian security forces open fire on their own streets. The Gulf sits under the guns of a massive U.S. naval armada, yet in Muscat’s shaded corridors, envoys exchange indirect messages about a nuclear program Tehran vows never to dismantle. This is the paradox of modern Iran: a regime fighting for survival against domestic uprising and foreign pressure simultaneously, threatening to sever the global economy’s jugular at Hormuz rather than surrender its ballistic missiles or enrichment centrifuges.
The Levant Files launches this urgent podcast series at the precipice of history. We trace how mass civilian casualties sparked the most dangerous internal crisis since 1979, even as the Trump administration steams toward potential conflict. We dissect the Oman talks—the fragile conduit where Washington and Tehran speak through intermediaries while refusing to budge on existential red lines, even as military strikes loom.
From the strait—where a single miscalculation could starve world markets of a fifth of their oil—to the shuttered bazaars of Isfahan where protesters defy live ammunition, we map the interconnected crises threatening to engulf the Levant. Our correspondents separate signal from noise, examining whether these negotiations are genuine off-ramps or elaborate theater masking inevitable confrontation.
Join us in your favorite podcast platform as we navigate the shadow war between aircraft carriers and uranium hexafluoride, between popular revolution and authoritarian endurance. The stakes have never been higher. The truth has never been more urgent.
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