00:00I just still want to understand your thinking here with regards to the U.S. motivations and the direction things
00:07are heading in.
00:08Because, I mean, the Iran talks are happening in the same city at the same time, more or less, as
00:13the Ukraine talks,
00:14using the same U.S. team of Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.
00:19I mean, some critics are saying that those two men, you know, don't have the depth of knowledge that people,
00:26for example,
00:27the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Arachi has, that's just on the Iranian side.
00:31And then, of course, there's something opposite from the Russians as well.
00:35I mean, aren't they outmatched and overstretched?
00:38So it's clear. I mean, it's just factual. They don't have the same level of experience.
00:43You just mentioned Foreign Minister Arachi. He worked on the original JCPOA.
00:49He is very well schooled, in-depth on all the issues that goes into this type of agreement.
00:55It's very technical. Hopefully, Mr. Witkoff and Kushner have teams of experts that are with them from the intelligence community,
01:04potentially from the Department of Energy, which in the U.S., of course, is responsible for nuclear protocols.
01:10They need these expertise in order to be able to keep up with Arachi, who he himself has the expertise.
01:16On the other side, it's a key – Madinsky, I believe is his name – is a key advisor to
01:23President Putin,
01:24who's very well schooled on everything Ukraine and everything the Russians want to know.
01:30Of course, historically, there would be seasoned, long-term career diplomats,
01:36either appointed or in the position of a professional State Department employee,
01:42plus many members from the intelligence community.
01:45That's just not the case here.
01:46They can supplement that with the expertise, essentially backseating them.
01:51But I haven't seen any real big names that would indicate that they're taking advantage of that
01:56really significant pool of expertise in the State Department and the intelligence community.
02:00Thank you very much for joining us today.
Comments