00:00U.S. President Trump is insisting that Iran is negotiating and desperate to make a deal.
00:05That's even as Tehran publicly rejected Washington's outreach
00:08and issued conditions of its own as the war grinds on.
00:12We've settled eight wars. People sort of forget.
00:16And we're winning another one, I tell you.
00:18We're winning so big, nobody's ever seen anything like we're doing in the Middle East with Iran.
00:24And they are negotiating, by the way, and they want to make a deal so badly,
00:27but they're afraid to say it because they figure they'll be killed by their own people.
00:32They're also afraid they'll be killed by us.
00:38Meanwhile, the Fars News Agency reports Iran is looking to formalize a transit fee for the Strait of Hormuz
00:45with lawmakers working on a draft bill.
00:48For more, we're joined by Stuart Livingstone-Wallace, our executive editor for Minan Russia in Dubai,
00:52and our Washington deputy bureau chief, Laura Davison, who is in Hong Kong right now.
00:58Stuart, I'm going to start with you.
00:59While Iran appeared to have rejected U.S.'s terms for ending the war, what did we learn yesterday?
01:06I mean, I think ultimately what we learned is that Iran doesn't appear to be in a mood to compromise.
01:12And is, in fact, pursuing some pretty maximalist demands,
01:16including but not limited to war reparations, sovereignty over Hormuz and so on.
01:20So the calculus seems to be that, in their view,
01:24the U.S. doesn't appear to have a lot of good military options here to end the war
01:27and that Iran can continue to inflict this rising cost on the global economy
01:31through basically the price of commodities.
01:34And that, in turn, has potentially severe political consequences for leaders right around the world.
01:39So, I mean, in sum, they appear to think they have little to gain from compromise
01:43because, again, in their view, the longer this war goes on, the more leverage they have.
01:51Yeah. But, Laura, at the same time, the U.S. and President Trump is insisting
01:56that the talks are still ongoing, that the Iranians are actually keen to make a deal.
02:01So there's a bit of conflicting narratives going on here.
02:05What exactly did we learn from the White House yesterday?
02:10Yeah, the White House said, as Trump said in that clip, that Iran is, quote,
02:14you know, afraid to acknowledge that they're talking.
02:17Still, there have been no signs, you know, and including the Iranian denial,
02:20that there are back channels happening here.
02:23The U.S. has sort of put out its own list of maximalist demands to reach some sort of peace
02:28plan.
02:28But it's very clear that Trump is keen to find some sort of way to resolve this conflict
02:33in the next several weeks here.
02:35He's been privately telling aides that he's looking to find a resolution here.
02:39But, you know, Trump repeatedly sort of at every turn has, you know,
02:42kind of overestimated what the U.S. is going to be able to do.
02:46You know, he started out with regime change.
02:47The U.S. has moved off of that.
02:48Now he's looking, you know, has it floated earlier in the week
02:51that the U.S. and Iran could jointly control the Strait of Hormuz.
02:54I suppose that seems to be one of those demands that Iran was quick to shot down,
03:00including, you know, going forward, that there would be some sort of, you know,
03:02Iranian capitulation here shortly.
03:04As Iran has shown, they've been able to sort of fight efficiently,
03:08you know, even at a weakened state.
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