00:00I wanted to ask you, I mean, some of the experts that we've spoken to have suggested that President Trump
00:05is acting on gut feelings and hunches here.
00:09And I just wonder whether he's listening to career diplomats like you, experts, people who know the region well, as
00:19you do.
00:19Is that something you think the president is doing?
00:22There's no indication of that, Tom.
00:23In fact, for years, many of us dedicated our professional lives to planning for just this possibility from the diplomatic
00:31side and from the military side.
00:33On the military side, in fact, tactically, so far, this war has been brilliantly successful.
00:42It's on the strategic side, on the diplomatic side, that it has not been.
00:46And that's because you didn't see the same type of preparation on the diplomatic side that you saw on the
00:52military side.
00:53But that's also no surprise because many senior diplomats have been moved out of the State Department.
00:59If they are still there, they're certainly not in meetings.
01:03They're certainly not being asked for their analysis or recommendations.
01:08And some of that is because they're not being asked.
01:11And some is because they're afraid to offer up different ideas that the president may disagree with, which would then
01:18lead them to be sidelined or fired altogether.
01:21So that's unfortunate.
01:23And we're seeing the results of that now with entirely predictable results, such as the Strait of Hormuz being closed
01:32and the attacks on the Gulf Arab partners, all of which were taken into account during the planning stages.
01:40And so I'm not saying that any of this necessarily could have been avoided, but we certainly could have prepared
01:48better for it.
01:49We could have moved American citizens and military forces and their families out and diplomats out of the region far
01:57even before hostilities began.
02:00That could have been used as another piece of negotiating leverage.
02:06The coalition could have been much broader than just Israel.
02:10There's a lot of things that could have been done and should have been done and were planned for, but
02:15were not, because it seems that the president was not getting that advice from the people who engaged in the
02:21planning and who have been dealing with the Iranians for a long time.
02:24Because, you know, the back and forth of messages that we're hearing about now via countries like Pakistan, this has
02:33been happening since 1979, when the Algerians helped us free those diplomatic hostages.
02:40We've had the Swiss acting as our intermediary officially for years at times.
02:45We've also had Oman, as you know, and other countries as well, Iraq, that have stepped in to help mediate
02:53between and pass messages between the United States and Iran.
02:56That's been going on for a very, very long time.
02:58And so you have or has diplomats who had a lot of experience with those communications with the Iranians and
03:06understanding how they do things.
03:10And so you have or has diplomats who had a lot of experience with those communications with the Iranians and
03:11the Iranians and the Iranians and the Iranians and the Iranians and the Iranians.
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