00:00Let me start by asking you about these talks that are going to be hosted by Turkey on Friday between the United States and Iran.
00:08How do you rate the chances of those talks?
00:11Well, it all depends on Trump and his whims. But the biggest problem is one of speed.
00:20The Iranians are always on a slow track in their negotiations, as we saw with those many rounds of Vienna talks to try to resuscitate the nuclear deal.
00:29With successive Trump administrations and the Americans are always on a fast track, you know, concede now or we attack you.
00:37So that, I think, would be one of the biggest things to overcome.
00:40You know, can the Iranians offer something quickly enough to stave off the American attack?
00:46Or can the Americans accept something that looks like an accomplishment to hold off on the attack?
00:54Don't forget that the last American attack was held off by the promise that Iranian wouldn't kill 800 of its arrestees.
01:03Now, there were a lot of counterclaims that that wasn't about to happen, but they did stop one execution.
01:09And there may have been, you know, 800 promised not to be executed at that time.
01:14And so, you know, with Trump, as you know, it's often a whim.
01:18It's often a he tries to be unpredictable and that unpredictability both serves him and hurts the long term viability of these agreements.
01:29But if the Iranians offer enough, the attack that looks like it's on the verge of being ready to be executed could be delayed again.
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