00:00You've been watchful over the past, what, nine weeks now of this conflict and the negotiations over the past few
00:05weeks when it comes to extending the ceasefire into a more permanent truce.
00:09Do you think that progress is being made or do you think perhaps the sort of requirements are being lowered
00:18in order to achieve some sort of deal for both sides now?
00:23Well, thank you, Heidi. I think it's a bit of both, but it's clear that one of the clocks that
00:28is ticking for President Trump is the onrushing date in Beijing with Xi Jinping.
00:36And he has a number of other pressures on him, U.S. domestic, economic and political pressures, but he's also
00:44having to contemplate meeting with his near peer, Xi Jinping.
00:50And he does it either under the cloud of a still complete impasse on the conflict or he does it
01:00looking like he's beginning to find to chart an exit from this conflict.
01:08It's interesting that you bring up the upcoming Leaders' Summit in Beijing as being kind of impetus for getting at
01:15least some sort of symbolic deal.
01:16How much influence do you think President Xi has here, given that China is in multiple times, in multiple conflicts
01:24now, sort of tried to take diplomatic leadership, but perhaps with, you know, limited impact?
01:32Well, I think historically China has stayed well clear of the sticky morass of conflicts, political security conflicts in the
01:42Middle East.
01:43And I think this will be no different, although it clearly China has a lot of interests, strategic interests, in
01:51seeing the Strait of Hormuz fully open and a state of war ending between Iran, Israel and the U.S.
01:59But it is not, I would say, necessarily a natural thing for China's Xi Jinping to wade into such a
02:09fray and to do so to help his American counterpart.
02:14And to do so just before a summit, does this give China the upper hand when Xi Jinping heads into
02:22that conversation with President Trump?
02:23Well, I think it's clear that the Iranians are courting Chinese support for their position.
02:33And indeed, all of the public comments to date by the Chinese leaders, officials have been very carefully couched, never
02:43laying blame wholly at or really substantially at Iran's door,
02:48calling on both sides to bring the conflict to the end, to open the strait and so forth.
02:54But I'd be very surprised to see a Chinese move to do something ahead of this summit, because after all,
03:02he's if he is inclined to wade into this and I'm skeptical,
03:06he would only do so in trade for something significant.
03:11And the reason that I'm asking for your thoughts on this summit is also because I'm trying to understand what
03:19President Trump has achieved from going to war with Iran.
03:23I know that Heidi alluded to this question earlier, but what has President Trump gotten if, in fact, that one
03:29page MOU that supposedly the two sides are reviewing at this point
03:33includes clauses like the nuclear talks in detail will actually be postponed, a moratorium for Iran's uranium enrichment.
03:42But everything else doesn't seem to have changed that much from where we were at before the war.
03:49Well, you're asking the same questions that many Americans are asking and indeed Europeans, other folks around the world who
03:57are being very,
03:58very, very affected by this crisis, this conflict and the shuttering of the strait, everyone is asking the same thing.
04:07Look, I don't think it's unreasonable to kick to the side to a longer process what is a very complex
04:15set of nuclear issues.
04:17On the other hand, he is having to untangle, undo something that was, you know, to return to the status
04:26quo ante before the war.
04:28That's a main goal now for ending the war.
04:32And it's a pass-fail test.
04:34It's either entirely open or it's not.
04:37And the worst, one of the worst outcomes could be that the U.S. succeeds to Iran having some sort
04:45of management of the strait
04:46by which Tehran would gain a whole new revenue stream, as well as coercive political control over the strait
04:55and the ability to turn it on and off as it has in these last weeks.
05:00And that's exactly sort of the signs of what we're seeing, right, with this new updated process for ships seeking
05:06to transit the strait of Hormuz.
05:09Ship owners now need to send an email to the Persian Gulf Strait Authority.
05:14You know, this is sort of a deterioration in the ability for free passage from before the war, right,
05:19which I think then goes back to Sherry's question, well, what has actually been achieved,
05:23even if you look at it from just a pragmatic economic sense when it comes to global energy markets and
05:29shipping markets?
05:31At best, at best, some of the Iranian capabilities to project threats, ballistic missiles, drones, etc.,
05:41some of that has been destroyed, but not all.
05:45We've heard estimates that only 50% of the ballistic missile arsenal has been destroyed.
05:50And that can be replaced. It can be rebuilt.
05:52The defense industrial base has been smashed to pieces. That, too, can be rebuilt.
05:58Proxies, they are in disarray, but they can regenerate.
06:02The point is, if Iran gains a whole separate revenue stream,
06:07it enables it to essentially disregard the pressures from sanctions, and it can rebuild.
06:14So I can't really tell you that the administration has achieved anything at this point.
06:20And in fact, arguably, the world and the U.S. are in a much worse position.
06:27But to all of the points that you just mentioned, is Israel the bigger winner here?
06:33No, not really. Not really, because in the sense that all of those elements of threat have not been destroyed,
06:41have not been removed.
06:43And you have a hardened, more radicalized regime that has taken the place of what was never a moderate regime
06:50in the history of the Islamic Republic.
06:52But certainly, this one is a more radicalized regime and battle-tested.
06:59And yet, when it comes to a deterioration of regional proxies and also perhaps a weakening of Iran,
07:05have those ambitions from Israel actually been achieved?
07:11No. No. And you hear that commentary from Israelis themselves, what was it all about in the end?
07:19So while the nuclear program has been smashed up, there is still the unresolved issue of some 440 kilograms of
07:30highly enriched uranium
07:32and another several hundred kilograms of lesser enriched uranium that has to be accounted for, has to be removed or
07:41downblended.
07:42The rest of the program is in disarray, but can be rebuilt.
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