00:00I'm saying, you know, giving a timeline of two to three weeks, how realistic is that given where we are
00:05in the war right now?
00:07Well, I mean, he did say that there's a time frame to end it in two to three weeks, but
00:12there's very little information about how that will be will go about.
00:16There's no mention about the Strait of Hormuz, as we've explained before.
00:20There's no mention about whether or not they will continue the ground operation in Iran to retrieve some of Iran's
00:26uranium.
00:27I know that this was one of the main objectives of the, you know, going into war, America's main objective.
00:33So there's very little clarity about whether this would be an achievable outcome in the next two to three weeks,
00:39unless there's a diversion happening for something that will more or less happen in the next two to three weeks
00:45that will change the course of action.
00:47And then we're talking maybe an end of the war in a different sense, because we don't know if that
00:54means also going into a peace deal or negotiations,
00:57as we've learned from the Iranians, that there has been no direct contact in terms of any negotiations happening anytime
01:04soon, which is pretty alarming as well.
01:07So that means when he says an end to war unilaterally in the next two to three weeks, I'm not
01:13sure that it means a resolution of the conflict.
01:18And of course, we reportedly heard from the UAE saying that it is willing to join forces with the U
01:25.S. to help open the Strait of Hormuz.
01:27Might we see other countries joining in the chorus to do the same?
01:32I mean, this could be one thing that President Trump is trying to allure to.
01:36I mean, we know that in the last few weeks, he was quite unhappy that he asked a couple of
01:42countries,
01:42including the Gulf states and some European countries, for assistance, military assistance in trying to open the Strait of Hormuz.
01:50And he was met with rejections to try to intervene militarily.
01:54And I think he kept on issuing that pressure on Gulf states, saying this is practically your war and you
02:01should join or at least pay for the war that the U.S. is fighting for you, in the words
02:06of the President Trump.
02:07So I don't know that this is what the President Trump is aiming to achieve in this two to three
02:12weeks time frame,
02:13as in the U.S. will no longer be directly involved in the war with Iran, but other actors and
02:19other countries might then be involved directly, militarily or otherwise,
02:23whether to open the Strait of Hormuz or to defend itself from Iranian missiles.
02:31I guess the question, Mariam, is whether the international community or anyone for the matter can force open the Strait
02:38of Hormuz when Iran has categorically said that it wants sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.
02:45That is one of the demands. It won't be that easy.
02:48It's not. It's not at all. And that's why we're in this, I would call it this diplomatic pickle,
02:53because this is one of the things that fundamentally Iran is using to create a global economic pressure, and it's
02:59quite successfully doing so.
03:01It was able to bring the U.S. into terms that it wants, as in to minimize the heavy military
03:08casualties and to bring the global pressure to push the U.S. to stop its war.
03:13I mean, this war has only lasted for a couple of weeks or maybe will last for a couple of
03:17months, no longer,
03:18because there is that global economic pressure that even the U.S. administration in itself cannot handle unilaterally.
03:26So I think the issue with opening the Strait of Hormuz, if serious, then it will require a huge military
03:33cooperation between a number of countries
03:35that will have to dramatically intervene militarily to open the Strait of Hormuz.
03:41And when we talk about a military intervention of this sort, you're talking about a huge conflict that would require
03:48and involve more than one country,
03:50and it will include a lot of complex web of regional interests that I'm not sure we are ready to
03:57see just yet.
04:00Can you envision Iran continuing to control the Strait of Hormuz?
04:05I mean, it could be one of the legacies of this Iran war.
04:09I mean, it is holding it till now, and they can very much be able to do so for the
04:15foreseeable future.
04:16And like I said, the Strait of Hormuz is Iran's strongest play card in this war, and it realizes this.
04:24So it will be very, very, very hard for it to give up this card quite easily,
04:28unless it will be used in negotiating terms to end the war quite to the side of what Iran wanted
04:37to request.
04:38So I would see that Iran will be able to secure and keep the Strait of Hormuz and its sovereignty
04:44over it.
04:45And this is particularly why this war has prolonged for this period, and also why we see the actions from
04:52the U.S. administration
04:54looking more towards a de-escalation, at least for the time being, more than intensification of the military conflicts.
05:03We talk about an escalation.
05:05Can there be, is it possible to envision unintended escalation, not just involving the Houthis,
05:12but, you know, the Hezbollah, the Iraqi militias?
05:16How possible is that?
05:19I mean, this is another important and strong card that the Iranians and the Iranian regime has,
05:24which is its proxy groups in the region, right?
05:26So one of its major, major cards is using Hezbollah in Lebanon and opening the front,
05:32the Lebanon's front against Israel, because as we all know, Israel is part of the war on Iran as well.
05:38And Hezbollah is a significant military power in the region.
05:42And we've read, I mean, I've done research on the party, and we know that they have a considerable military
05:48arsenal.
05:49We're talking about more than 250,000 fighters.
05:52We're talking about thousands and thousands of missiles, long-range and short-range.
05:57We've recently saw that Hezbollah was able to use ballistic missiles,
06:02and that shows it's quite far reached into the heart of Tel Aviv from Lebanon.
06:07And we've also seen a new use of its technique of the use of drones,
06:12and also for the use of missiles that can interfere with the airplanes or the Israeli warplanes over Beirut.
06:20So that's a considerable kind of progression in how the war is getting.
06:24So what Iran is practically saying, and we have to put that also in the context of the Houthis in
06:30Yemen
06:30have also declared in the last few days that they were also engaging in this war with the Iranian regime.
06:39And we also saw that in Iraq, al-Hushl al-Shaabi has also initiated an engagement in this war to
06:45aid the Iranian regime.
06:46So what Iran is practically saying, that besides the economic pressure that we are looming in,
06:51in the Strait of Hormuz, we're also initiating the actions of our proxy groups
06:58from three or four different fronts, Hezbollah, Houthis, and Hajj al-Shaabi in Iraq.
07:03So what we'll practically be doing, we're going to be creating a more disruption in the Middle East
07:09and in the region across the areas in the Gulf states, and that will disrupt the economy of that area
07:17as well.
07:18And that has been quite successful.
07:20It will try to bring Iran maybe closer to the end of this war based on the means that they
07:26see necessary.
07:28But it's a really interesting development to see how this will play out in terms of whether Iran and the
07:35U.S.
07:35were able to end the conflict between them.
07:39How will that translate in the Lebanon-Israel scenario?
07:45Mariam, how about diplomatic channels? Is that dead?
07:48I mean, we have the likes of Pakistan saying that it is willing to play the role of the mediator.
07:54Between which actors?
07:57Between both actors, the U.S. and Iran?
08:01I mean, look, by far, there's lack of trust between the two sides.
08:06I mean, we've seen the Iranian foreign minister saying that he has received some conflicting messages,
08:13one that are warnings, the other are more friendly messages about an intent to initiate peace and negotiations.
08:19And then you have on the other side from the U.S. conflicting statements from the President Trump
08:24and his administration on one side, maybe intensifying the language by saying we will obliterate the Iranian regime,
08:33we will change the Iranian regime, we will send them back to the Stone Age and what so on.
08:39And then you have other statements on the other side saying that they want to bring the war to an
08:43end and that the U.S.
08:45has achieved its objectives.
08:47So I think there's a really lack of trust and lack of miscommunication and lack of communication between the two
08:51sides.
08:53Whether this can be remedied, then it's really important to see what are the objectives for the negotiations and the
09:00peace process that can bring the two sides together.
09:04And we all know as well that Israel is a very major player in here where it still sees and
09:10it will continue to see the Iranian regime as a major threat to its own security.
09:14So whether it will be aiding and supporting any peace agreement between the U.S. and Iran, that's another story
09:20as well.
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