00:00Samuel Romani is Associate Fellow at the RUSI Think Tank and CEO of Pangea Geopolitical Risk.
00:05Samuel, welcome back.
00:06So we're hearing mixed signals, Iranian officials suggesting talks are progressing,
00:11Poland's Prime Minister urging citizens to leave the region.
00:15How do you assess where we are, what happens next, what are you hearing?
00:21Well, we're really hearing mixed signals, right?
00:23We're seeing the U.S. and even Abbasarachi, the Iranian Foreign Minister,
00:26discussing that these rounds of talks have been more constructive,
00:30but obviously the uranium enrichment and the ballistic missile limitation red lines on Iran's side still remain,
00:36and the U.S. disapproves of that.
00:38I think that Donald Tusk is potentially preparing Polish citizens and encouraging other NATO allies to follow suit,
00:45in part because he believes that there's at least some risk of at least limited military strikes,
00:49like we saw in June of 2025, maybe on a more sustained basis than that.
00:53It's possible that this is a repetition of what we've seen in terms of evacuation warnings before,
00:58like the 2003 Iraq War, 2021 Afghanistan when the Taliban was coming,
01:03but I also think that this is just precautionary because of Iran's history of arresting Western nationals
01:08and detaining them arbitrarily, and also the challenges associated with evacuations,
01:13especially with a non-cooperative government like Iran towards the West.
01:16President Trump has a history, of course, of using rhetoric and threats as leverage in negotiations.
01:22I mean, do you see this as a credible military escalation that's loaded and ready to go,
01:28or is it simply a bargaining tactic designed to pressure Iran into a deal?
01:35Well, exactly. I do think that this could be a bargaining tactic.
01:38It certainly fits his M.O. to use escalations as basically a way to kind of create leverage ahead of
01:45talks.
01:46For example, he withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, and then over the next couple of years,
01:53periodically explored the idea of pursuing negotiations with Iran,
01:57while other U.S. allies established back channels like the United Arab Emirates.
02:02Then there was a Soleimani strike in 2020 that was aimed at really upping the stakes,
02:06and many people thought that was going to lead to a large-scale war, and it didn't.
02:10Same thing happened in June of 2025, major U.S. involvement followed by no war.
02:14So I think this is possible that there could be a leverage-building thing here,
02:17but equally, when I speak to others in the region, there are parallels that are being drawn towards what happened
02:22in Venezuela also,
02:23where Nicolas Maduro, just 24 hours before he was captured, was reaching out to the United States for talks.
02:29The U.S. was entertaining it, only for hours later him to be captured and for there to be a
02:34sea change in Venezuela.
02:35So I think that there's growing concern within the Gulf region and also within Tehran that it's the latter option
02:41this time,
02:42that this escalation is going to lead to something much more sustained or longer term.
02:45Whether it's full-scale regime change, unknown, but something longer term, and it's not just a leverage-building exercise.
02:51What should we read into the timing of all of this?
02:55Well, I think that the timing of all of this reflects a clear erosion of U.S.-Iran ability to cooperate.
03:02I mean, we saw the JCPOA be completely unraveled in the fall of last year, and that was not just
03:08the U.S. doing that,
03:09but that was also the E3 countries.
03:10We've seen the French, the Germans, the British basically also suspend that.
03:16We've seen Iran draw much closer in terms of its security partnerships with Russia,
03:21beyond the exchange of drones, towards a comprehensive strategic partnership.
03:25And also, and these moves suggest that Iran is really not expecting much of a breakthrough from the West.
03:31It's maintaining its hard lines.
03:33And then there was the human rights chasm over Iran's repression of the protesters.
03:37So with all of those things, we're looking at a situation where there's pretty much intractable divisions
03:41and mistrust between the U.S. and the West and Iran more broadly,
03:44and that doesn't point in a good direction for those who want peace.
03:48Regional actors with Israel accepted, though, the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Qataris,
03:52really don't want this to escalate to a full-scale war.
03:55Why? Because they're worried about central authority in Iran splitting up.
03:58Iran may be even having a civil war.
04:01And even though they don't like the Islamic Republic, for the most part,
04:04they see its retention as at least stable and predictable compared to the alternatives.
04:09So Israel might be pushing Trump in an escalation direction,
04:12but the Saudis, the Emiratis, and the Qataris are pushing Trump in the direction of restraint.
04:16The big question is, who does he listen to?
04:18Samuel Romani, thanks for coming on the program again.
04:20Samuel Romani, Associate Fellow at RUSI.
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