00:00Well, let's bring all of this together. Samuel Romani is Associate Fellow at Oxford University.
00:06Last year we saw the Oman, Rome and Geneva talks kind of unravel and become the 12-day war in
00:12June.
00:13There have been many times they've been trying to resolve or revive the DCPOA in some form,
00:18and their seeking points are always very similar.
00:21Israel is fundamentally opposed to a deal with Iran and believes that the Iranian threat can only be neutralized through
00:26military force.
00:27The Iranian state of uranium enrichment continues to grow each time,
00:31which makes it much harder to go to a near-zero or zero enrichment model like the U.S. wants.
00:37And Iran is very, very determined to compartmentalize nuclear agreement from other problematic actions from the U.S. perspective,
00:45ballistic missiles and regional activities.
00:47So I don't think that we're necessarily close to a long-term deal, even if we get an interim one,
00:53and the mistrust is still very strong.
00:55If a deal is reached, what would be materially different from the previous iterations agreement that we've seen on the
01:05table before?
01:06Well, the first thing is the immediate thing.
01:08There has to be a ceasefire, and so an end to the U.S. threats to target Kargai Island and
01:12target bridges and other infrastructure and bombing,
01:15as well as reopening the state of Hormuz from the Iranian side with no mines and with no longer harassing
01:21ships,
01:22either by the IRGC or through proxies like the Houthis.
01:25The Israelis most likely have to also dial down to Lebanon,
01:28and there has to be some stricter nuclear enforcements.
01:31So the 3.67 percent, which was allowed before, will now have to basically be near zero, I think,
01:37for the U.S. to claim a victory and to accept it.
01:40Obviously, a ceasefire and a Hormuz agreement and an agreement to keep talking
01:45and maybe some kind of understanding on reconstruction might be a good baseline,
01:49but it's going to have to go deeper than 2015 for Trump to claim a win
01:53because he castigated that 2015 agreement, the JCPOA, as the worst deal in American history.
01:59Pakistan has reportedly played a significant role in facilitating discussions and the diplomacy.
02:05Just how significant is Islamabad's role in all of this?
02:10Well, Prime Minister Sharif and Army Chief Asim Muneer have managed to convert Pakistan
02:15from a country that was seen to be a state that was struggling internally into a peace broker.
02:20So there's obviously some admiration from that.
02:23The Pakistani mediation seems to be broadly supported by key actors in the region.
02:27We've seen Saudi Arabia, we've seen Turkey, we've seen Qatar somewhat rally behind it,
02:32and also Pakistan has been trusted in the past to handle U.S.-Iran diplomacy
02:37because it handles Iran's interests in the diplomatic space.
02:40Some regional actors are obviously frustrated by Pakistan's role, especially the United Arab Emirates.
02:46I was engaging with the party officials recently, and they were seeing Pakistan as quite duplicitous.
02:51But Pakistan does seem to be the only actor now that can bridge between Iran and the United States.
02:57Obviously, Oman and Qatar still have roles to play, but Pakistan seems to be the key one right now.
03:03So come back to about the future.
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