00:00Just give us your view on the latest development here and how these two parties come together
00:05if the U.S. continues to blockade and Iran says we will not talk unless this blockade is lifted.
00:13Well, first, let me take that point. First of all, the Iranian position is outrageous.
00:19They blocked the straits for everybody else. Trump gave them weeks of where they could continue to
00:25ship their oil out. Nobody else could. While they tried to get a solution, he entered a ceasefire.
00:31And then finally, when the first negotiating round didn't work, he imposed the blockade.
00:35The blockade is forcing the Iranians to rethink. Two ways to look at what Trump has just done.
00:41One is less likely he's afraid that new military operations would lead to a massive Iranian
00:48retaliation on the Gulf states and Israel. That doesn't seem to be a major military concern,
00:54but I put it out there. The other possibility is that he's heard from the Pakistanis that
00:59the divisions within Iran, which is seemingly the main reason why we didn't have the negotiations
01:07tomorrow, is driven by a demand that the United States take the threat of war, at least off the
01:16table. So Trump has done that. He's made a concession. It's not a big one. And we'll see
01:21what happens with the Iranians. If they do not come back with a significant offer that we can work
01:28with, then I think Trump will revisit the returning to military operations card.
01:36Is there some realistic resolution here, Mr. Ambassador? I mean, we talked to Terry Haynes of
01:43Pangea Policy, and he said what the Iranians want is they want to have uranium for civilian
01:49purposes. They also want to, I think, maintain their regime. Do you agree? And is there a solution
01:57to be had if that's what the Iranians indeed want?
02:04Okay. First mistake, this is not a war that we began. This is another campaign in a war that the
02:12most active phase, it's gone back decades, it started with the Hamas, an Iranian proxy attack on
02:18Israel, joined soon after by other Iranian proxies, and then Iran itself, and two missile barrages in
02:232024. So this is another campaign. Iran wants its enrichment program, not so it can have scientific
02:31pride in itself, but it wants it as a tool for either a nuclear weapon or to leverage, not having
02:39a nuclear weapon, for gradual control of the region. This has been the goal of that regime since
02:461979. And it's why people don't get that. Will they accept over a period of time, ratcheting back
02:53the nuclear program to something that looks like a civilian program? Yes. And that's what Trump is
03:00planning on. Buying 12 or 15 years wouldn't be a bad idea. 20 would be even better, but the Iranians
03:06have said they don't want that. So you will get another success. The difference between now and when
03:11Obama did the deal was that Iran and its proxies have been much, much weakened in the region. They're
03:16not in as good a shape. And that's another plus. So Ambassador, how does this war end? And what's a
03:23realistic timeline for us to think about? It will end like all wars with negotiations. It will end with
03:30compromise on both the American and the Iranian side that will result in some period of time,
03:36Trump will be very, very insistent. It's better than the Obama 2015 deal of Iran not moving closer
03:44to a nuclear material for a nuclear weapon. Will it be better? What? Will it be a better deal? Is
03:50it
03:50possible for it to be a better deal? Of course. The Iranians supposedly agreed, at least for five
03:57years, to stop enrichment. They never agreed to that in the Obama JCPOA. So they're already on the table
04:03of stopping at least temporarily enrichment. So yeah, it could well be a better deal. Whether it
04:07will be, that's another question. But again, that and the lifting of the dual embargoes on the
04:13straits are the main elements of any deal. The deal will come. The question is when. Time is working
04:19against Trump in terms of the elections and, of course, as you've been reporting, the economic costs
04:24for many of our partners and allies. But it's also not working in the case of Iran either because of
04:30the
04:30total embargo that we've imposed on our ships going in or out.
04:33Mr. Ambassador, last question. Have we, though, created a bigger enemy in Iran for the United States
04:40or no? You actually maybe believe that there's a new way forward in this relationship?
04:46No, it'll be the same old relationship, which is we have a regime that until we overthrow it or some
04:50of
04:51the people overthrow it, will want to dominate the region. They choose various tools to do it with.
04:56Sometimes they do it with sugar rather than with steel. But that is their goal. It isn't that,
05:04boy, we got rid of the moderate, reasonable leaders when we started the war and now we're
05:08dealing with the hardliners. They're all hardliners. They take different approaches. No,
05:13we're not going to deal with a more dangerous Iran. We're going to deal with an Iran that we're
05:16just going to have to still deal with.
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