Caren Miosga's talk was about the Israeli-Iranian conflict

Caren Miosga 's talk show was about 50 minutes into its run when her editor handed the host a note. It read the news that US President Trump was open to his Russian counterpart Putin's offer to mediate in the conflict between Israel and Iran. Miosga read it aloud.

CNN correspondent Frederik Pleitgen, whose flow of speech was interrupted for this breaking news, didn't need a second to formulate his assessment of Trump's latest volte-face: "Makes sense," he replied lightly, and immediately began to talk about the close relations between Iran and Russia. This is evident, for example, in the Iranian dates that can be found in all Moscow supermarkets and that he, Pleitgen, sometimes buys when he's in the city.

It was Pleitgen's bad luck and Miosga's good fortune that Guido Steinberg of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs was also on the show. He put the news into context with great clarity in just a few sentences: for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Trump's statements were a slap in the face. Steinberg pointed out that Russia is not only an ally of Iran, but that Israeli-Russian relations have also deteriorated significantly, as the recent delivery of used Patriot air defense systems by Israel to Ukraine demonstrated.

Until Friday's attack on Iran, security experts had always assumed, according to Steinberg, that Israel would only attempt to destroy Iran's nuclear program in cooperation with the United States, because only the Americans possessed the weapons systems capable of destroying the bunkers built deep in the rock. Steinberg suggested that, given the shaky position in the White House, Israel could now significantly increase the pace of its attacks on Iran. Steinberg doesn't seem to believe that their goal will be achieved; "they will have to abort."

In addition to Pleitgen and Steinberg, Isabel Schayani, presenter of the ARD program "Weltspiegel" with many contacts in Iran, and Sophie von der Tann, ARD correspondent in Israel, were also guests on the program (von der Tann via live link). What they had to report did not go beyond what the news programs report with impressionistic plausibility about the mood in both countries.

Both Shayani and von der Tann expressed their conviction that Netanyahu was trying to distract from the devastating situation in the Gaza Strip with the attack on Iran – an assessment Steinberg clearly contradicted, again with convincing arguments. The fact that the Iranians were close to the crucial threshold for uranium enrichment and, at the same time, their air defenses were still weakened by last year's attacks were good reasons to attack now.

It's unfortunate that Miosga failed to bring a prominent foreign policy expert onto her show; one can assume she tried, after all, that's the concept of her show. And one can also assume that the vanity of one or two of the candidates would have been great enough. Therefore, it's reasonable to assume that the German government instructed its troops to exercise extreme restraint when making statements about the conflict.

Pleitgen spoke out loudly. He wasn't sure whether the Iranians really wanted the bomb; if they really wanted it, they would have achieved it long ago. In his opinion, the bomb is more of a threat to defend themselves against Western sanctions. In the end, some kind of deal will be reached, the CNN man concluded.

Then Miosga handed over to Tagesthemen. One got the impression that she was very relieved.