00:00U.S.-Iran talks are planned in Pakistan for Wednesday, according to CNN.
00:05Vice President J.D. Vance is expected to fly there tomorrow.
00:08Ian Bremmer, Eurasia Group president and founder, outlined four key risks that could derail an Iran deal.
00:14He joins us now. Ian, it is the consistent headline fatigue and fog of war that we've been dealing with.
00:20First, the Strait of Hormuz is open on Friday, then Iran says it's closed on Saturday.
00:25Questions surrounding the U.S. seizure of an Iranian ship.
00:28Are you confident, like this market is, that we are indeed in an off-ramp to peace?
00:34No, no, not at all. I'm confident that we're in an off-ramp for an announcement of peace.
00:40I think we will get a second round of talks. I think they'll go forward.
00:44I think Vance will get there and he'll talk to the Iranians.
00:48And it wouldn't surprise me at all if on the back of that there's some progress.
00:52Both sides are pretty close on many issues.
00:54Trump really wants a deal. Trump is likely to announce one.
00:58But moving from an announcement to an actual implementation that then lets us feel like we can get traffic in
01:08the straight back to normal,
01:10that's a lot of lifting that has to happen before then.
01:13There are a lot of ways that that can blow apart.
01:15We're not close to that, in my view.
01:17How important is that to the president?
01:20You know, outwardly, it's important for the Republican Party that the price at the pump not accelerate any further and
01:28hopefully come down.
01:30But I wonder if the president feels comfortable with crude oil in the $80 or $90 range.
01:37It certainly hasn't hurt the energy companies that I'm sure lobby him.
01:41And it's obviously been beneficial to Russia as well.
01:45Well, he seems to feel more comfortable now than he did when he gave the State of the Union and
01:52was talking about gas under two bucks at a station in Iowa.
01:56That's how he started his speech.
01:57Now he's saying, you know, oil is a lot lower than it could have been.
02:01He heard $200, $250, $300, and it's under $100.
02:04And isn't that great?
02:06And that's because not only have prices gone way up under his administration and because of his decisions in Iran,
02:13but also because he doesn't have a mechanism to get them down.
02:16He knows that.
02:17So, I mean, he doesn't have a military plan that's going to open the strait anytime soon.
02:22And in some ways, he's been slow rolling it.
02:24You know, you've got an aircraft strike carrier group that's now going the slow way around the Cape of Good
02:30Hope.
02:31You've got other thousands of marine expeditionary unit that's still on the other side of the Strait of Malacca.
02:39And so it doesn't look like there is an imminent military decision to escalate, nor is there a plan that
02:47looks like it would get prices down.
02:49So at this point, Trump has to accept that come November, a big part of his efforts at the midterms
02:59are going to be underwater with affordability.
03:01But so this is why you're confident, Ian, that we're going to get an extension of the ceasefire, right?
03:06Because that is supposed to end on Tuesday night.
03:09We're seeing now headlines that talks may actually happen Wednesday in Islamabad, which would be great timing to extend the
03:17ceasefire for no reason at all.
03:20The big problem, though, is that that would allow the Iranians to dig out, as you put in your notes,
03:27some of their missiles that our U.S. and Israeli attacks have buried.
03:32Well, that's already happened. Right. I mean, over the last week, we already have the Iranians improving their military capabilities
03:41because there's a ceasefire on.
03:44So, I mean, Trump's willingness to provide a ceasefire implied that he was quite serious about an off ramp, because
03:54otherwise, why would he give the Iranians that time?
03:57Now, he's trying to show that he's serious and that there'll be consequences with the blockade.
04:03I think that is and and with the attack and the seizure of an Iranian vessel.
04:09At the same time, the ceasefire is still in place. The Americans haven't violated it.
04:14Trump has pushed the Israelis to accept a ceasefire with Lebanon. He's quite proud of that.
04:19He's been calling up global leaders and telling them what a great job he did at ending yet another war,
04:25this time between Israel and Lebanon.
04:29He's also been threatening the Iranians a fifth time, by my count, and that if they don't come to the
04:35table and agree with Trump on a on a breakthrough,
04:40that he's going to blow up all of their civilian infrastructure.
04:43He's less credible on that one. But but still, everything about Trump's activities and posturing in the last two weeks
04:52seem to imply he wants to extend the ceasefire,
04:57seems to imply he really doesn't want to go back to fighting if he can avoid it.
05:02But still, there is this U.S. military blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.
05:05I mean, this is just coming out now that they've directed 27 vessels to turn back, according to the U
05:10.S. military.
05:11Ian, to what degree does this place more economic pressure on Iran itself?
05:15And is that something that could move the needle further, that could bring them to the table?
05:21You have to hope so. It's putting more pressure on Iran.
05:25It's also putting more economic pressure on the United States, which improves America's credibility.
05:31Let's remember that Iran has a lot more money today than they did six weeks ago because the oil prices
05:40are so much higher and because the United States wasn't imposing a blockade.
05:46In fact, until last week, the Americans had suspended oil sanctions on Iran because at that point,
05:55Trump was focused more on keeping prices down than on pressuring the Iranian regime.
06:01He has since flipped that logic on its head.
06:05And so now he's trying to do more to show the Iranians he's going to squeeze them.
06:09Is that really about economic pressure or is it about trying to show American credibility that if you persist with
06:17a refusal to come to the table and come to terms,
06:22that the United States is capable of waiting you out and do the Iranians find that credible?
06:28I mean, the real danger here is that Iran, I mean, you saw Trump said, I'm no more Mr. Nice
06:35Guy.
06:35If you're the supreme leader of Iran or if you're the leaders of the IRGC and Trump has already with
06:43the Israelis killed your father and your mother
06:46and 150 of the leaders of your country have been assassinated, and then you're saying, no more Mr. Nice Guy,
06:56plausibly you didn't think he was Mr. Nice Guy even before he said that, right?
07:01Plausibly.
07:01So I think that, you know, the problem is America is trying to negotiate, having already blown up the negotiations,
07:11with a group of leaders that may not be focused just on how do we get to yes with the
07:18United States.
07:20There may be a willingness to engage in retribution.
07:23There may be some ideology that is not about just survival as a regime.
07:31This may be kind of a challenge that the Israelis had with Hamas in Gaza, for example.
07:37But I don't think the Americans are prepared to do the damage to Iran that the Israelis were to the
07:43people of Gaza
07:44to get to their military outcomes.
07:47And so that limits the ability of Trump to force the Iranians to do what he wants.
07:56Ian, to what extent has Putin and Russia been a beneficiary of this war?
08:03And how is China positioned?
08:05Russia is a near-term beneficiary, probably the biggest of the near-term beneficiaries.
08:12Again, like Iran, until last week, selling a lot more oil and gas and fertilizer.
08:19And that's what the Russians have to export at much higher prices because of the war.
08:24And those sanctions remain lifted, by the way, on Russia.
08:27What?
08:28The sanctions on Russia, they have been lifted again.
08:31The Russian sanctions have been suspended, just as the Iranian sanctions were suspended by the United States.
08:36They are still suspended as of today.
08:39And so the Russians are making a lot more money.
08:42Also, of course, a lot of the military capabilities that had been available to sell to the Europeans
08:49who were providing them to Ukraine, those military capabilities, interceptors, missile defense,
08:56they are now going to the Gulf region.
08:59So the fact is that the Russians no longer have to worry as much
09:04that the Ukrainians are going to be able to repel them the way they have.
09:08Having said all of that, Ukraine today is the most capable and trained military in Europe.
09:15And I don't think that was Putin's intention four years ago, but that is the reality today.
09:20And Putin has not been able to take any land from the Ukrainians in the last three months.
09:25In fact, he's actually lost some land in occupied Ukraine that the Ukrainians have taken back.
09:32So when I look at Russia today from a global perspective, even though their position has improved somewhat
09:39in the past weeks of the Iran war, I wouldn't want to be in their position.
09:44It's also true that the transatlantic relationship getting a lot weaker, more fractious, that is an improvement for Putin.
09:53He likes big existential questions around NATO, the Americans calling NATO allies cowards.
10:00Putin likes all of that.
10:01But his biggest ally in Europe, Viktor Orban in Hungary, just lost to an anti-Russian Hungarian right-wing populist,
10:11Petr Magyar, with a constitutional majority, which means that the Europeans, even with the new Bulgaria elections,
10:18the Europeans are going to have an easier time raising more money for Ukraine, raising more loans for Ukraine,
10:25putting tougher sanctions on the Russians.
10:27So I really don't think Putin's in a materially better position as a consequence of all this.
10:33China is in a materially better position long term because so many countries are angry with the United States.
10:42This war that the Americans launched in Iran is enormously unpopular with almost every country in the world except Israel.
10:54And that has led many governments to want to hedge more with other countries, including with China.
11:01So long term, even though this hurts the Chinese economy, they're not a big energy exporter.
11:08They don't like to see these prices going up any more than the Indonesians or the South Koreans.
11:14But long term, China sees themselves as in a better strategic position.
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