- 16 hours ago
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Ethan, I want to start with you, because in Pakistan we have representatives from Iran and representatives from the United
00:06States, but not there and not represented is anyone from Israel.
00:10Is it possible for this war to end without Israel's participation in peace talks?
00:17Sure. I mean, I think that, you know, Israel is being informed by the United States on a sort of
00:24a side channel.
00:25So I don't think that's a problem. It would have been surprising if Israel would have shown up in Pakistan.
00:30There are no diplomatic relations between Pakistan and Israel. It would have been complicated.
00:35And this is, you know, a negotiation with the United States and Iran. So I don't think that is the
00:40biggest problem, no.
00:42So what is the biggest problem? I mean, there are quite a few, but...
00:45Well, there are many, many problems, yeah. I mean, Israel's presence at the table, I guess, is just not a
00:52very high one on the list.
00:53I mean, the biggest problem, of course, is that the United States and Israel launched this war six weeks ago
00:59and thought they could effectively take apart that regime and force change and found that the regime was far more
01:08resistant than they expected.
01:10And the regime's survival and even thriving on some level in Iran has allowed it to take control of the
01:18Strait of Hormuz to sort of have a stranglehold over a large part of the world economy through that and
01:25has, you know, caused enormous political problems for President Trump.
01:29So he would like to find a way to wrap this up.
01:33We, you know, assuming you take seriously the goals he set for this war along with Israel, those have not
01:40been met.
01:41So to end it and not reach those goals, what does that mean for the security issues that he raised?
01:48On the other hand, to not end this war and allow oil and fertilizer and all the other issues that
01:55we're facing to go forward when most people did not consider this a necessary war also seems unlikely.
02:02I would say it's a very gloomy picture, frankly, from the point of view of the United States.
02:08Catherine, I want to go to you because I think I know the answer to this, but I'm going to
02:11ask it anyway.
02:13Do we have any more information from the White House about when these talks are going to start?
02:18Because it's already getting quite late in the afternoon in Pakistan.
02:20What the format of them is going to be and how long they're willing to stay there.
02:25Are we still planning on only one day of talks regardless of the outcome?
02:30Yeah, thanks so much.
02:32I mean, you know, we don't have a lot of information about how this is going to unfold.
02:35Obviously, we know that Vice President Vance is over there to lead this, you know, with Jared Kushner and Witkoff.
02:43They have already had this initial meeting with Pakistan, but we're still waiting, honestly, for more information about how this
02:50is going to unfold, how this is going to proceed.
02:54And this is a very high stakes moment for the Vice President.
02:58You know, we've never really seen him play this kind of role on the world stage before.
03:01It's kind of a classic Vice President assignment, which is, you know, high risk, but potentially some reward.
03:08You know, it would help him, obviously, if he can help, you know, broker some kind of deal here as
03:13he looks ahead potentially to 2028.
03:16But he could get saddled with a lot of blame if there are no wins out of these talks today.
03:22Yeah, Catherine, I want to talk a little bit more about that and J.D. Vance's role here.
03:26There was that reporting earlier this week from The New York Times, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan about what actually
03:32happened in the situation room and who felt what about this war.
03:36And J.D. Vance was sort of alone in his opposition to this.
03:40And he served in the military.
03:41He's against these forever wars.
03:43He is opposed and has been opposed to different conflicts.
03:48I'm just curious what that means to send him as the lead negotiator, somebody who, you know, based on reporting
03:55and what we've read, really didn't want to be attacking Iran in the first place.
04:00Well, certainly we know that, you know, in those private conversations, J.D. Vance was, you know, among the more
04:06skeptical or certainly someone who wanted to, you know, sort of have a more robust debate, bring more information to
04:13the president.
04:15And yes, he has a history of raising concerns and expressing anxiety about forever wars.
04:20So that is that is a key dynamic going into this.
04:24And the president was influenced by a lot of folks from outside of the White House as he made the
04:28decision to do this.
04:29Also important to note that J.D. Vance has been very clear publicly that once the president made the decision,
04:33he was with him.
04:34He has he has defended it.
04:35He has he has been vocal about that and that he is part of his team.
04:40I mean, the thing is that sending him over there really, you know, sort of saddles him with it.
04:45Right. It puts it around his neck as well.
04:47Well, and there's no way for him to distance himself from this war now, given that he is now really
04:54sort of taking a leading role in in the diplomacy here.
04:59Ethan, I want to ask you about the role of nationalism, because this is something we've seen time and time
05:03again, where countries who may not like their leader go into a conflict, go into war and kind of close
05:09ranks behind them.
05:10And what I'm hearing from Iranian friends and people I know who have family there is that they hated this
05:16regime.
05:17Many of the ones I've spoken to are not friends of the Ayatollah, of the clerics.
05:21They are happy to see them go.
05:22But the way the U.S. has gone about this conflict is not making friends and winning over hearts and
05:28minds.
05:29And Iranians are almost starting to close rank.
05:31Do you think the scorched earth tactics we've seen in some places from the U.S. have made it harder
05:36for a moderate regime to come in and take hold in Tehran?
05:40I do.
05:41I think the things you said are very likely to be true.
05:44I mean, this has been this was even a year and plus ago in the 12-day war in June
05:48of 25.
05:50The question is, you know, raised both here and in the United States and generally that this is a very
05:55unpopular regime.
05:57They were barely able to keep the lights on in Iran.
06:00There were droughts.
06:01This is a country that's oil rich and spending vast sums of money on Hezbollah and the Houthis and Hamas
06:07instead of on its own people.
06:08And obviously the idea was that people are unhappy and want to get rid of it.
06:14But if an outside force comes and starts to bomb the place, the natural reaction is to gather around those,
06:21you know, your own people.
06:23And it looks like that's kind of what's happened.
06:26I mean, you know, it's also true that this government in Iran is, I think, was far more skilled at
06:32decentralizing its command structure and so on.
06:36It's a vast country, almost the size of Western Europe, 90 plus million people.
06:41You know, this was not a Venezuela Mark II situation.
06:45And the Israelis and the Americans, at least the Americans led by President Trump, seemed to hope and believe that
06:51it might be.
06:53And I think that you're right.
06:55It's all kinds of things have happened that not what they expected, including a sense among a bunch of Iranians.
07:02We don't have any polls, just the impressions that you've laid out that they're angrier at the outsiders than they
07:08are at their own government.
07:09Hey, Ethan, we've spoken to you quite a bit over the last two and a half years.
07:13And one thing that we've learned is that you've spent more time in your bomb shelter, along with your fellow
07:19Israeli people who live in Israel and your family, than you would have liked to, especially over the last few
07:26weeks.
07:26And I'm wondering if that has changed and how much that has changed since Tuesday and since this fragile ceasefire.
07:33Well, it's completely changed.
07:35I still this I'm you're looking at me in my bomb shelter because it happens to be my study.
07:40But after the ceasefire was announced, there has been very little.
07:46There was a Hezbollah missile that reached Tel Aviv the night before last.
07:52But generally, people are out.
07:54I just actually came back from the seaside where I had lunch and lots and lots and lots of people
08:01are out.
08:02So there is a generally a sense of security now in the in this moment of ceasefire for sure.
08:10Catherine, meanwhile, the president who has dispatched his vice president overseas is not in Washington this weekend.
08:16He's in Florida for he had an event in Charlottesville.
08:19He went on to Florida for, I believe, a UFC fight.
08:22And then we have some comments from him on this whole thing before he got on his plane to Virginia
08:27on Friday.
08:31The strait will open up.
08:35The strait will open up.
08:36If we just left, the strait's going to otherwise they make no money.
08:40So the strait's going to open.
08:41But what we have is no nuclear weapon.
08:44But we'll open the strait anyway.
08:45Don't forget, we don't use the strait.
08:47Other countries use the strait.
08:49So we do have other countries coming up and they'll help out.
08:53But we don't we don't use it.
08:55It won't be easy.
08:56It won't be.
08:57I would say this.
08:59We will have that open fairly soon.
09:02Do you think the president has essentially moved on from this?
09:06He seems to think it's going to resolve itself.
09:09No, he hasn't moved on.
09:11And one tiny thing.
09:12He was in Virginia yesterday at this event.
09:15He actually went back to the White House last night.
09:17And he's expected to come down to Florida today.
09:19Oh, thank you. Okay, I appreciate that.
09:20That's a tiny programming note.
09:23Yeah, he's supposed to.
09:24But he is, yes, he is supposed to attend a UFC fight in Miami tonight.
09:28That is the expectation.
09:29And then be here for part of the weekend.
09:32I think that he has made very clear he would like to move forward.
09:36I mean, he also said in those comments to reporters, you know, they've effectively, you know, defeated Iran.
09:42You know, they're there.
09:43You know, it's basically done.
09:45And you've seen him laying that kind of rhetorical groundwork for some time, right?
09:48We've heard him talk about how this is basically this mission is basically accomplished.
09:52They've done what they've wanted to do, whether or not that is the case.
09:59And I think what's happening, obviously, and this is referred to earlier.
10:02I mean, he is under an immense amount of pressure about domestic gas prices, about public opinion polling,
10:08and about the midterm elections, which were already expected to be challenging for Republicans.
10:12And now we're looking increasingly dire.
10:15I mean, the public is not sold on this war.
10:19And the rise in gas prices is only sort of juicing frustration that was already there over the cost of
10:28living and prices.
10:30I want to bring in Philip Crowther.
10:32He is joining us.
10:34He's AP International correspondent.
10:35He's joining us from Islamabad right now.
10:37Philip, we're going to get back to the affordability portion of this for Americans,
10:42and especially as Republicans and Democrats go into the midterms in just a few months.
10:46But since you are in Islamabad, just bring us up to date on what has happened with negotiators.
10:52What's the latest that you're hearing on the ground between the U.S., Iran, and Pakistan?
10:59Yeah, this is where we have to start talking about what direct talks and what indirect talks are between the
11:05United States and Iran.
11:07That is why we're here in Islamabad.
11:09That is why there is a mediator between Iran and the United States and a host, of course, for these
11:15talks about the ceasefire,
11:16maybe peace talks eventually.
11:19So what Pakistan is doing right now is it is meeting through its prime minister, Sharif, with the two delegations.
11:26A meeting with the Iranian delegation has already happened.
11:29Iran represented here by its parliament speaker and by its foreign minister.
11:32Of course, as you know, on the U.S. side, it's J.D. Vance, the vice president, Steve Witkoff, the
11:38chief negotiator, and Jared Kushner as well.
11:40They have also now met with the Pakistani prime minister.
11:44Now, that's how these talks tend to work, because the United States and Iran obviously don't see eye to eye
11:50together
11:51and don't tend to be seen in the same room together either.
11:54It's what often happens with warring factions.
11:57You need a mediator in the middle, and that is Pakistan here.
12:00Of course, the hope here is that eventually, after those meetings are done, that there might be a rapprochement, if
12:06you will,
12:07between Iran and the United States, an actual physical rapprochement here in Islamabad,
12:11and that they will actually be able to sit, not necessarily side by side, but opposite each other in a
12:16negotiating room here in the Pakistani capital.
12:20Now, it's important to note, though, that there are obviously huge differences between these two sides.
12:26When it comes to extending this very tenuous ceasefire and maybe reaching some kind of a peace agreement.
12:33And that starts with Iran setting some preconditions to even meet in the first place with the American delegation.
12:39The Iranians say that they want some of their frozen assets released in Qatar, for example,
12:46and that they want a ceasefire that is very tenuous right now to also include Israeli attacks on Hezbollah targets
12:54in Lebanon.
12:55That clearly hasn't happened over the last 24 hours.
12:58So there is still a small question mark over whether we're going to see these actual face-to-face meetings
13:03between the U.S. and Iranian delegations.
13:06Even if they don't, there can still be a successful outcome here.
13:09But it is a sign of how these two sides, even though they're used to negotiating with each other, they
13:14obviously don't see eye to eye with each other.
13:17Philip, you're speaking music to my diplomatic reporter's heart because I have also been trying to explain to folks that
13:22just because they're in the same city doesn't mean they're in the same room.
13:25Even if you see a photo of them, that doesn't mean that's where the negotiations are taking place.
13:29Normally, with Iran previously, when the Qataris, the Omanis have been moderating, they've been doing exactly what Philip was saying,
13:36essentially passing notes back and forth, delivering terms.
13:39But, Philip, you know this, that takes a long time.
13:41And when I've interviewed, you know, high-profile diplomats who facilitated these talks, even they express frustration about how long
13:48indirect talks take.
13:50It's getting late there.
13:52They're not even, like, really going with this.
13:54What are they going to get done in the day that they've laid out?
13:57Do you think these are going to drag on or do you think they're going to say, this is great,
14:00let's try again next week?
14:04Look, it all depends on what you might consider a measure of success in these talks.
14:09From the Pakistani side, they, as mediators, are already very proud, I can tell you, that they are hosting these
14:14talks in the first place and that they are seen as the country responsible for bringing this ceasefire to a
14:21reality in the first place.
14:23So, for the organizers here, maybe a sign of success would be for these two delegations, yes, to meet, maybe
14:29indirectly, maybe directly, at a very high level, and for them to get along just about enough for there to
14:36be further technical talks, as they're called.
14:40This means that lower-ranked delegations might still remain here in Islamabad or some might be flown in from Tehran
14:46and from Washington, for example, and that they will then be able to hash out some of the crucial differences.
14:52How does one come to an understanding when the United States wants the nuclear program in Iran curbed or almost
14:59halted entirely and when Iran says it has a right to a nuclear program?
15:04How do they get to an actual agreement how the Strait of Hormuz might be reopened when the United States
15:10says it has to be open to all or even the United States might want to make some money with
15:14it,
15:14and Iran says that it wants control over the Strait and actually makes some money with it, as it has
15:21been doing over the last few weeks in the first place?
15:23Huge differences between these two countries, obviously, but that doesn't mean that there can't be some kind of a successful
15:30outcome, and that's diplomatic speak as well.
15:32Well, you might not come to a huge signed agreement here later tonight here in Islamabad, but you might see
15:38the two delegations saying,
15:39you know what, we have enough of an understanding to keep on meeting and to keep on working on this
15:45whole thing.
15:45Philip Crowe, their Associated Press international correspondent, joining us from Islamabad.
15:50I want to go back to Catherine Lucey, who is our White House correspondent joining us right now,
15:54and just, Catherine, bring you into the conversation about the question of success.
15:59And we heard from Philip just now, okay, what success could look like to Pakistan from a diplomatic angle?
16:05But how does J.D. Vance return from this trip and say that was successful?
16:10What does that look like?
16:12I mean, I think there's a lot of what-ifs baked into that question, right?
16:16But I think one thing we've seen from President Trump that could extend here is that he is very good
16:22at sort of picking the things that he wants to emphasize
16:24and trying to declare wins when he can.
16:27And if there is progress, I think that is what they will point to, right?
16:34So if they can say, we've moved forward on this, talks continue, you know, this was a good first day.
16:40I mean, and of course, obviously, if there's more, if they reach a full deal, I think, you know, that's
16:45obviously a big win for them.
16:48But I think as long as they can cite that this is moving forward, I think they will try and,
16:54they could try and sort of argue that that was a good day.
16:58Ethan, quickly before we have to let you go, does Benjamin Netanyahu want these negotiations to be successful?
17:07I guess it depends on how you define success.
17:10If success means that the American demands in the program they put forward, an ending of all enrichment, the ending
17:19of the nuclear program, the ending of the ballistic program,
17:22the cutoff from the proxies, then I think he'd be delighted.
17:26He said so from the beginning, you know, if a diplomatic solution could do it, great.
17:31But the likelihood, of course, given where we are, is that those things will not emerge from this.
17:36And in that sense, I'd say you're right to ask the question, that he remains skeptical.
17:41And of course, for him, for Israelis, it's a much more immediate danger from their perspective to have Iran back
17:49on the horse and agreeing to make money in the strait and so on.
17:54So certainly a fair amount of concern here that this may happen in a way that will not be good
18:01for this country.
Comments