>> Iran attacked a U.S. base in Qatar today.

No casualties are reported.

And President Trump thanked Iranian leaders for giving the U.S. advance notice of the strike.

Today's action comes after the United States bombed 3 nuclear facilities in Iran on Saturday night and what Trump called a spectacular military success.

So what is next?

Joining us are Ibrahim Sharif, associate professor in residence in the journalism and Strategic Communication program at Northwestern University where his areas of focus include digital media and religion.

Globalization and contemporary Islam and Paul Post associate professor at the University of Chicago where his area of research and teaching is international relations.

Gentlemen, thanks to both for joining us.

Ibrahim Sharif.

Let's start with you, please.

Northwestern University has a campus.

The university in Qatar.

You have students there.

What are you hearing from them?

While they've been texting me all day with videos?

Also tell me what they're seeing, what they're hearing.

>> And the fears, of course.

But yeah, it's it's been ongoing.

I don't think anticipated.

don't think a lot of us anticipated.

That the Iranians will attack the American base in Qatar because entanglements and economic entanglements between Iran and Qatar are significant.

They have they have a shared gas field and they need each other.

So I think a lot of people were surprised by this.

But, you know, the the attack on American based looks a little bit choreographed.

You know, it's sort of, you know, we did respond what we did and like.

>> People post nodding his head in agreement to that part about the choreography.

I want to come back to you in a second, because Ibrahim, I wonder what was your initial reaction to that?

The U.S. striking Iran over the weekend?

>> Well, I was very disappointed I was with us or because I think it destabilizes the region and they're they're using nuclear war again.

Our new killer.

Sorry, Wilson, are nuclear weaponry as a reason to get engage militarily than other country.

This was we shouldn't forget what happened in Iraq and the senseless loss of life 100,000 civilians over something that panned out to be untrue.

And I don't think there's a feeling intelligence.

I think it's failure of moral policy because I think the the the brain, the rain said in the White House knew about this.

So here we are again, we've been told for almost 25 years at the Ron just is 3 months away from a weapon.

So I think we need to be a little bit curious about about that statement and using nukes as a reason to destabilize the regime.

And they mentioned the word regime change.

I don't think that's the goal.

I think surging failure and they're hoping to turn Iran into a failed state because power in that region pregnancies really any kind of because there's also been talk of sort of mission creep.

Great.

Is this about preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon or is this about changing the regime in Iran?

>> And obviously people are going to have different thoughts about about approaching about how to approach either of those Should people in the U.S. here should they be concerned about what's happening?

>> I think.

>> The the key word to use here is choreographed or I've even talking about this be posturing or symbolic and I would apply that both to the strike today Ron watched against the U.S. space, but also to the U.S. strike over the weekend.

In many ways, it was also highly choreographed.

Apparently, Iranian officials also had some prior notice to the attack.

They were able to actually move out some of the material from the facilities that were bombed and it was done in a way to minimize casualties, which is good.

But it was mostly downs way to kind of signal that the U.S. would do something.

I do think that President Trump was reluctant to get fully involved in a war, but he also may be felt a bit of a pull because Benjamin Netanyahu has been asking him to be able to become involved.

I think this was the way he could do it.

But in a manner that again was kind of symbolic and choreographed.

And then we've seen a Ron kind of respond in the same way.

What that means then is that this is probably not as serious of the situation as it could have been.

And so in that sense, there's less of a level of concern.

There was some concern over the weekend when it wasn't yet clear how much this was choreographed because they're the FBI had even issued warnings about possibility of Iran using say proxies around the world to perhaps launch tax to U.S. citizens as weather was a travel warning, for example, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

>> Ibrahim Trump has said the president has said that he wants peace in the region that he wants to negotiate.

If that is the case, why do you why did he take the step?

What do you think he I think the whole thing is puzzling.

I don't think that he has full agency in this decision.

>> The United and Iran were in talks actually about 2, the to diffuse the situation.

And it's it's really important to stress here that I don't think Iranians are really that interested in having a weapon.

They're interested in having the sanctions removed from their country to have assets are frozen and unfrozen and to join the international Commerce community and to prosper.

And so I think that they would mean they were pushed to the point of finding some leverage in making some international noise by having this enrichment, uranium enrichment.

So I think that they're pushed to this there since 1979 revolution.

They were a pariah in the international community.

George Bush called him one of the axis of evil.

And all of these words that in public and that their propaganda theory, that's those are carefully chosen words because you can't reason with evil.

You can.

You can only defeat it.

And so these wars create a sort image of Iran that really has roots in colonial mindsets about, you know, about the global south in general.

And so I think the Iranians would prefer to have a diplomatic solution to this.

I think having nuclear weapon is not on your top schedule.

>> Paul Post, there's still debate about exactly how close Iran was to having nuclear capabilities.

If that is the case and it was uncertain then is this attack premature?

Well, that debate is still going on.

>> I like my colleagues earlier statement about that.

Iran has been 3 months away for 20 years and it features a lot of truth to that statement.

Just over the weekend, someone was sharing a video of the number of times that Benjamin Netanyahu over the past decade has said that Iran on the brink are on break and he's not the only one who has made those kind of statements.

And of course, heading into this past week were actually heading into Israel's most recent escalation or attacks against Iran.

Even Macron, the president France raised the alarm about concerning evidence.

So it wasn't just a Netanyahu raising the alarm.

There are others, but it's still not clear exactly how close Iran is.

What is clear is they're closer now than say they were back in 2017 when President Trump ended the Iran nuclear deal, which was, of course, brokered by the Obama administration as a way to try to achieve the kind of sanctions relief that Iran is seeking.

And turn, create monitoring systems to ensure that any kind of program that's the bill would be for peaceful purposes.

That was eliminated by the Trump administration in 2017 that it opted instead for their maximum pressure campaign.

What is notable is that Trump did seem to want to go back to negotiations.

They had been in the process of negotiations when Israel wants to strike.

We could talk more about why Israel would seek to do that in this instance when it seemed like they were close to reaching a deal.

However, it now seems like maybe those talks will be back on.

>> Ibrahim Iran already responded with missile attacks on.

We know, of course, obviously about the U.S. military base Qatar cutter.

what do you make of Iran's response and?

>> Well, I think it was it was an attempt to destroy the base.

It was it was the 10th to make some noise.

I do think even if you look at the choreographed, the response that this indicates it's a signal that singling that we're ready get back to diplomacy and running our minutes.

Our Ashley considerable.

But they they help back they they have a public.

They have to satisfy.

They have.

They're the only local internal narrative.

They have to produce.

And so I think that this was interesting, but I think it tells us.

That they want to get back to diplomacy.

What does this mean for future negotiations?

If I mean, if it sounds like that, that if you believe this to be a signal that they want to get back to the negotiating table?

>> Well, I think there's going to be some time there's nationally go.

So when the Eagles are reset.

>> And they can go forth with the with negotiations.

It may take a look.

This definitely putting a dent.

There was an attempt 2 to have this thing resolved through diplomacy.

But that was shot down by the Israeli attacks on Iran.

Iran.

You know, took a severe hit by that.

But again, it's I think United States did not have the strength to resist.

Israeli needs to to bomb Iraq.

This is this is the Obama probably out of loud how to do this.

It's an interesting easy game to play by saying what somebody else would have done.

But I just don't think that this is this is a show weakness on the Trump administration.

And that's right.

You I see the bluster and bravado.

Yeah.

With a great.

But again, you have to look back passes.

No words.

>> Paul, how has the U.S. standing on the on the world stage shifted over time?

>> Well, this is something has shifted.

This is something that a lot of people have been talking about ever since Trump came back in office.

You've heard a lot about the decline us reputations were.

I think right now people fully sure what to think because it's not fully clear what Trump himself thinks and what he wants.

I think what's less important, what's more important than the U.S. reputation world is just simply predictability.

People want to know that this is what the U.S. is seeking to achieve in right now.

It's not clear and that is one of the things that even this past week when you looked at the various tweets that Trump was putting out there as they are, they looking for regime change?

Are they trying to?

Are they trying to disable the nuclear program?

It's not clear what's going on.

Having said all that, it is the case that throughout the region.

Iran is viewed as a destabilizing force.

And there's a lot of nations in that region that would not be happy if Iran had a nuclear weapon.

Now, of course, we can go back to the conversation of how close was a Ron.

Is Ron actually truly seeking a weapon?

But I think that one thing in terms of looking at international standing, even if the rest of the international, even if like say countries in Europe are questioning about the legality of the operations, either by Israel or the United States.

But a lot of countries in the Middle East region, the greater Middle East region that even if they're not saying it publicly, I think are actually OK with taking steps to prevent Iran from having to have and they don't want to see a large war.

But these operations are successful and safe dismantling.

They would be okay with that.

>> Israel no doubt among nations that would not like to see a run with with and nuclear weapon.

And we should mention that the president did share on truth Social, a post really just one last 30, 40 minutes saying that the cease-fire had been agreed to force.

There will more to learn about that in the coming