00:00We start with the war in Iran, and the ceasefire announced this week with negotiations taking place in Pakistan, led
00:06by Vice President Vance.
00:08Ambassador Richard Haas served as a diplomat in both Republican and Democratic administrations before leading the Council on Foreign Relations
00:15for two decades.
00:17He now is with Centerview Partners.
00:20Richard, you have been in the room, as it were, for some very high-level negotiations.
00:26Give us a guide to how we should look at the negotiations going on right now involving the war in
00:32Iran.
00:33Well, the beginning of negotiations tends to be throat-clearing, in my experience, that people are often posturing, getting comfortable.
00:41The fact that, in particular, the U.S. side is so inexperienced.
00:44You've got two non-diplomats who have been the principal diplomats for the United States, and then you've got the
00:49vice president, who doesn't have a long background.
00:52Plus, David, the two sides, shall we say, to say they're far apart, would be a diplomatic understatement.
00:59They are, someone pointed out, it's wider than the Strait of Hormuz, the differences between the two sides.
01:05And the question is, to what extent are they willing and able, are they prepared, essentially, to begin to bridge
01:12the differences?
01:13So this is a tall order, plus one more thing.
01:16It's taking place against the backdrop, shall we say, of something other than a ceasefire.
01:21This is already a messy situation.
01:23It's not war, but it's not peace or even a pause.
01:27It's something in between, which, again, complicates the task.
01:30As a diplomat, how do you start breaking down that gap, as you describe it?
01:34I mean, people have said in a Venn diagram, there's no overlap right now in the position of the two
01:37sides.
01:38Well, the first thing is, before you start thinking about what you're going to try to accomplish across the table,
01:43you need to have in your own mind, say, let's talk about the U.S. side, what are its priorities?
01:50You've got the nuclear issue.
01:51You've got the Strait.
01:53You've got ceasefire.
01:55You've got Iranian support for proxies.
01:57You've got Iranian drone and ballistic missile development.
02:00You've got internal Iranian treatment of its own people.
02:03It's a long list.
02:04So one thing is to think about what are our priorities, where also are our opportunities,
02:09where do we think potentially there's some give on the other side or the gap between the two sides
02:14is not going to be the same in each one of the things I just mentioned.
02:17It might be bigger in some of the others.
02:21Where are we prepared to compromise?
02:23What does the United States have to come out of this with in terms of the Strait of Hormuz,
02:27which wasn't even an issue going in?
02:28Yeah, I think the two biggest issues are the Strait of Hormuz and the nuclear.
02:31The Strait of Hormuz is the more time-urgent issue because every day that goes by is disastrous
02:37for the international economy and for the region.
02:41The nuclear issue can be parked for a while, not because it's not important,
02:45but unless there's evidence that Iran is changing the status of nuclear materials or its program,
02:51then nothing changes.
02:52So I would say Strait of Hormuz is the big issue.
02:55What we cannot allow is for Iran to exercise sole control over the Strait,
03:01charging tolls where it derives all the revenues,
03:04because that would also eliminate any economic pressure on the Iranian regime.
03:09What I've argued is we ought to adopt the principle that the Strait of Hormuz needs to be open for
03:15all
03:15or closed to all, including Iran.
03:18And what I've recommended to two of my colleagues, Neil Ferguson and Phil Zellicoe,
03:24is that we create a new Strait of Hormuz commission or authority
03:27that would essentially govern the operation of the Strait.
03:30Perhaps you could have a fee charge, but then it would be distributed,
03:33not just to Iran, but to the other, what, half-dozen or so local countries.
03:37Might be some degree of enforcement or support from the countries in Europe and Asia
03:42that are most dependent on the passage through the Strait.
03:46I would bring China into the equation because it has influence, obviously, in Trump.
03:52But we need some type of a governing authority that dilutes Iran's ability
03:57to decide who gets to use the Strait.
04:00And if we can't get that, David, I would favor a blockade.
04:03Again, open for all or closed to all, including Iran,
04:08and a blockade option in the Gulf of Oman.
04:10Even if you get to a governing authority that we all agree to,
04:13it sounds like Iran's going to have a say.
04:16They're going to have a seat at the table.
04:17It's not clear they had that before.
04:19Is that really a step backward?
04:21Because it used to be an international waterway.
04:24You're right.
04:25And there's no return, though, to the status quo ante.
04:27I think Iran has discovered that it has more leverage
04:31than it ever quite realized before.
04:33I don't think we can walk this back.
04:35So we're going to have to bring them in.
04:38So, yeah, we're going to end up here and elsewhere probably worse off
04:42than we were five, six weeks ago.
04:45What we want to do, though, is limit the scale of that.
04:48And I think, again, probably the wisest course here is not to do something to Iran,
04:53but to do something with Iran, to give Iran a stake in an open Strait of Hormuz.
04:58And I think we have a chance to achieve that,
05:01but probably only if we have the pressure of saying you either agree to something reasonable
05:05and, again, try to get the trainees and others to help us here,
05:09or we're going to make it impossible for you to benefit from the Strait of Hormuz.
05:14So I think that gives us a little bit of leverage.
05:16Also, Iran's economy is really hurting, David.
05:19Iran was in terrible shape before this war.
05:22It's in worse shape now.
05:23So, yes, they have some leverage, obviously, given some of the things they've done.
05:27But I think we would be wrong to ignore the degree to which we also enjoy a degree of leverage
05:32here.
05:32Well, I wonder about the leverage going into this,
05:35because looking at what the military has done in Iran,
05:37you'd say, boy, the United States has an awful lot of leverage with Israel as well.
05:41Is it the case that the United States has the upper hand going in this,
05:44or is the mere fact that Iran has survived and can still have done damage despite all we've done,
05:49does it actually give leverage to Iran?
05:51Iran emerges from this with considerable leverage.
05:54It's so interesting that you can, quote, unquote,
05:56win a war in the classic battlefield sense,
05:59but lose a war in the political leverage strategic sense.
06:02And that's what I would argue has happened here.
06:04The United States and Israel, by normal measures of warfare, have done extremely well.
06:09But strategically, politically, Iran has emerged with far more leverage than it had before.
06:15We in the United States have a tendency to look at it as United States versus Iran.
06:19There is another player.
06:20As you've pointed out in your newsletter, Home and Away,
06:23you've pointed out Israel has been a significant factor,
06:26including perhaps in getting the war started in the first place.
06:29How do you deal with that as a diplomat when you've got Bibi Netanyahu and Israel having a say?
06:34I think now, David, we probably have to accept the awkward reality
06:38that American and Israeli interests here are diverging.
06:41What Israel's been doing in Lebanon recently, I would argue, is not necessary,
06:45certainly not a priority for us at this point.
06:49So I'll be blunt.
06:50The president, there's this thing called the telephone.
06:52The president ought to pick it up, get on the phone with Prime Minister Netanyahu and say,
06:55stop.
06:56The argument for continuing the war is not nearly as strong as the argument for a ceasefire
07:02and these peace talks.
07:03Your vital national interests are not at stake.
07:06Iran is not doing anything new, say, with its nuclear program.
07:09That would pose an existential threat to you.
07:11What you're doing in Lebanon is discretionary, not essential.
07:15Knock it off.
07:16And I think that's important.
07:17I worry, David.
07:18I think actually one of the losers in this war is the U.S.-Israeli relationship.
07:22This is a relationship already under pressure because of what had happened in Gaza
07:26over the last few years.
07:27And I worry that by overreaching here, the Israeli government may have contributed
07:32to a further deterioration in the U.S.-Israeli relationship,
07:35which I would argue is in the interest of neither country.
07:38Your role at Centerview Partners now has you consulting with large corporations,
07:42with CEOs about business and economics.
07:46What does it mean for them?
07:47What are you advising them of what this means over the longer term?
07:51I'd say two things.
07:52I'm a long list, but let me highlight two things.
07:54One is it's a little bit difficult to see how this part of the world rebounds completely.
07:59The business model of the Gulf, of the, if you will, Dubai,
08:02let's use that as a shorthand.
08:05Tax havens, stability, great economic opportunity, energy, data centers.
08:10A little bit hard now to imagine the same scale of investment.
08:14If I told you your billion, multi-billion dollar investment would require 10 years of stability
08:20to pay off, you might think twice before opening up your checkbook to do that.
08:25That's one thing.
08:26I think people have to think a little bit differently.
08:29Second of all, rethink the whole notion of economic and energy security.
08:33Much more diversification.
08:35Less emphasis on one geography.
08:37Less emphasis on one form of energy and so forth.
08:41I think corporations in this country and the rest of the world have to assume
08:44that the sort of thing we just saw here is not a one-off.
08:47It's not something that couldn't happen again here or in other parts of the world.
08:51And finally, what are the chances of a true resolution of this situation,
08:56which was going on for almost 50 years now,
08:58as opposed to sort of monitoring and managing a chronic problem
09:02where we're going back and forth over years?
09:05At the risk of depressing your viewers even further, David,
09:08I don't think you get a resolution absent a fundamental change in the political system in Iran.
09:14And unfortunately, I don't see that in the cards anytime soon.
09:17Maybe down the road against the backdrop of further economic problems.
09:20But right now, this regime is, if anything, more entrenched than it was five, six weeks ago.
09:27So then you say, OK, we're not going to solve the problem.
09:29We're managing it.
09:30So we come up with some mechanism maybe to manage passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
09:35Not perfect.
09:36Maybe we come up with some negotiated or non-negotiated.
09:39Maybe just red lines and implicit signals about how we put a ceiling on Iran's nuclear program.
09:45I don't know about their support for proxies.
09:47They're going to continue to build drones.
09:49Every basement is a would-be factory when it comes to drones.
09:53Look what Ukraine has done.
09:54So I think your word management is the right word.
09:58Too many people look at things as problems to be solved.
10:01Let me just suggest, if we're lucky, this is a situation.
10:04This is a condition that we will be able to manage.
10:07This is a condition that we can manage.
10:08I love you.
10:08This is a condition that you can't get.
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