Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now.

Eleven years ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his much-quoted "Iranian nuclear duck" speech at AIPAC warning against United States plans for a nuclear deal. Fast forward to today and we hear reports that the United States is now looking for a “less for less” deal to stave off that Iranian duck’s final launch.

This week alone, Iran made international headlines as it claimed it had developed a hypersonic missile capable of traveling at 15 times the speed of sound. We were likewise told that Iran will head a naval alliance in cooperation with other Gulf states. And we heard that Iran is set to reopen its embassy in Saudi Arabia.

There are new truces in the region and a re-embrace of Syria in the Arab League. And that’s just the beginning.

This week, Dr. Jonathan Spyer, the director of research at the Middle East Forum and editor of Middle East Quarterly, gives us a whirlwind tour of the new alliances threading through a tangled region.

A freelance security analyst for Janes Information Group and a columnist at the Jerusalem Post, Spyer is also an on-the-ground journalist who has entered Syria, Lebanon and Iraq numerous times and is the author of the 2018 book “Days of the Fall: A Reporter's Journey in the Syria and Iraq Wars.”

And so this week of increased news out of Iran, we ask Jonathan Spyer, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

IMAGE: Dr. Jonathan Spyer on a reporting trip in Mosul, Iraq, September 2017. (courtesy)

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