Back-channel Mediation Among Regional Players

Today's top stories, with context, in just 15 minutes.
On today's podcast:
1) Fighting between Iran and the US-Israeli alliance continued unabated, even as President Trump claimed talks are under way to end the conflict. Iran launched overnight missile and drone attacks on the Israeli cities of Eilat, Dimona and Tel Aviv, as well as US bases in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia said it intercepted a drone in its eastern region, and Kuwait said some power lines were put out of service after an Iranian attack. Sirens sounded in Bahrain. In Iran, the Fars news agency reported US-Israeli attacks that damaged a gas pressure-regulation plant and an administrative building in the central city of Isfahan. There was also a strike on a pipeline supplying gas to the Khorramshahr Combined Cycle Power Plant in southwestern Iran, according to Fars. The attacks continued after Trump postponed strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure, citing “productive conversations” with Tehran. The US president’s claims of behind-the-scenes diplomacy were widely denied by Iranian officials, causing confusion over the participants in the talks and the parameters of a potential deal.
2) Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have taken steps toward joining the Iran war, the Wall Street Journal reported, potentially signaling an escalation of the fighting. Saudi Arabia agreed to give the US military access to King Fahd Air Base, the WSJ reported, citing people familiar with the matter, an apparent reversal after saying its bases couldn’t be used to attack its longtime rival. The newspaper also cited people familiar as saying the United Arab Emirates closed an Iranian-owned hospital and club — undercutting a key source of support for Tehran.
3) Senators in both parties expressed rising optimism late Monday about reaching an agreement to end the five-week partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, which has increasingly snarled air travel across the United States. After Republican senators met at the White House with President Trump on Monday, Senator Katie Britt of Alabama, a key negotiator, said she thought they had a solution to the impasse. On the floor she could be seen talking with members of both parties including Chuck Schumer, the Democrat leader. Schumer said “both sides are working in a serious way” as he left the Capitol after a day that began when Trump soured the talks with demands that Republicans tie passage of the partisan SAVE America Act voting legislation to Homeland Security funding. 

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