00:00What do you see as the latest position?
00:02I mean, for example, from the U.S.'s side,
00:03Donald Trump gave his State of the Union speech yesterday.
00:07Hardly mentioned it, did he?
00:08Yeah, hardly mentioned it.
00:09Look, I just want to underscore something, you know, Reza was alluding to.
00:12It's the fact that at the end of the day, yes, Iran is ready,
00:15open to compromise diplomacy, heavily signaling all of that.
00:19But remember, the bottom line, not just in these talks, but in any talks,
00:23Donald Trump has to come out looking like a winner.
00:25Donald Trump has to come out and be able to look like
00:27he's the biggest, baddest dealmaker in the world.
00:30He sees himself that way.
00:31He has to also sell that to the American people.
00:33So that is the bottom line.
00:35Even if the best diplomats in the world are sitting around that table,
00:38if Donald Trump is not able to package that in a way
00:41that he comes out looking like a winner, all bets are off.
00:44Now, his State of the Union address, you're absolutely right.
00:47People were waiting perhaps for some, some sort of, more than just signaling,
00:52I'll use the word clarity, some sort of explanation.
00:55What are the military objectives here?
00:58And it's a reasonable expectation in the sense that, take George Bush,
01:02when on the eve of the U.S. flood invasion of Iraq in 2003,
01:06when you built up military equipment in the Persian Gulf,
01:09flooded the Persian Gulf with aircraft carriers and warships and jet fighters,
01:12as we see now.
01:13At least then, George W. Bush went through the motions of a pretext
01:19of trying to explain to the American people why he's going to war.
01:22Sure, it was a complete, you know, bunch of lies.
01:25It was weapons of mass destruction.
01:27He made it all up.
01:28He invented a false pretext.
01:29But he did at least feel the obligation to go before the American people
01:33and at least try to look like he's explaining why.
01:36Donald Trump, there's a sense among many Americans,
01:38he's not even making the effort.
01:40And perhaps that's because he's looking at his electorate
01:42or his advisers are saying to him,
01:44Mr. President, you have to, you know, your base,
01:47they care about issues of affordability, cost of living, the economy.
01:52They care about the immigration crackdown.
01:53They don't want to hear about your foreign wars.
01:55They don't want to hear about Iran.
01:56Perhaps he was deliberately downplaying it.
01:59But you're absolutely right.
02:00He was vague.
02:00He didn't signal anything.
02:02He's right now all dressed up with nowhere to go in the Persian Gulf.
02:04All this military hardware there.
02:06What do you do with it right now?
02:07We know that the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the United States are dead set,
02:12have actually warned him of the risks of a spiraling and prolonged conflict,
02:15if he were, to actually launch strikes and go towards military intervention.
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