00:00Perhaps I start with you with a question about the genuinity of this MOU and whether it'll
00:06actually lead to a permanent cessation of hostilities, especially with the conflicting
00:12statements we're getting about the concessions reached from both sides. What is your take on that?
00:18Well, thanks for having me, Abir. No, I think it's highly unlikely it will lead to a permanent
00:22cessation of hostilities. It will not lead to a new Middle East. It will lead, best case,
00:27to a prolonged ceasefire. But certainly the Iranians, for one, will still see themselves
00:33on a war footing. They will still remain convinced that Israel and the United States
00:39seek to topple the Islamic Republic of Iran. They will try to rebuild their defense industrial base,
00:45their missiles, their rockets. The new, more militarized and more hardline Iranian leadership
00:50that we put in place by killing the old one could well seek nuclear weapons.
00:56So, no, the Middle East coming out of this is not going to be peaceful. At best,
01:02there'll be a long ceasefire. But don't forget, Israel will be trying to reestablish hostilities
01:09against Iran. So we bought ourselves some breathing room. And a lot of it depends on how seriously the
01:16U.S. takes the negotiations in the upcoming weeks and months.
01:22Well, from what we know about the MOU now, the details of that will emerge after the signing takes place
01:29on June 19th.
01:30But from what we know, what was leaked in the media over the past few days, how do you think
01:35it compares with the
01:37JCPOA? And whose side's favor does it play into more?
01:43Well, to be honest, Abir, and I don't say this because I was one of the people who helped do
01:47the JCPOA,
01:48you can't compare. The JCPOA was a nuclear agreement. What this is is a ceasefire
01:56and an agreement to try to get a nuclear agreement. So if and when the U.S. and Iran can
02:03reach a nuclear
02:04agreement, then we can compare it to the JCPOA. But what is clear for anyone who's been following
02:11Iran for any amount of time is that Iran has not collapsed or changed its red lines as a result
02:18of this war. It will still insist on indigenous enrichment, though it might suspend it for a
02:24while. It will not export all 90 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, excuse me, all 440 kilograms
02:32of highly enriched uranium to the United States. And it will not dismantle its nuclear infrastructure.
02:37So the nuclear threat that existed before this war still exists and could be worse because the new
02:45leadership could, in fact, try to build a nuclear weapon now that they have been attacked twice
02:49militarily in the last year by the U.S. and Israel. So speaking of Israel, it's not privy to this
02:59MOU.
03:00President Trump told The New York Times Benjamin Netanyahu has been difficult. As a matter of fact,
03:04hours before this was reached, Israel hit Lebanon or hit the suburbs of Beirut. What do you think
03:12Israel's next position will be and how does this deal affect Benjamin Netanyahu's upcoming elections
03:19in Israel? That's a great question, Abir. This deal is toxic politically for Prime Minister Netanyahu.
03:26So if he is forced to stand down both against Iran and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon,
03:34it's political death for him. This is why he is going to keep—he's going to try to do two things.
03:41He's going to try to scuttle the U.S.-Iran negotiations, and he's going to try to maintain
03:50hostilities against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Because if he stands down on both those fronts,
03:55it's going to kill him domestically because the only place this war is popular,
03:59the war against Iran and the war against Hezbollah, is in Israel.
04:06And when it comes to Iran's strategic calculations over how it conducts its foreign policy,
04:12do you think that the past two, three months have fundamentally changed the way it conducts
04:18its policies? Do you think it changes the way it deals with the U.S. going forward,
04:22given everything gets signed and the June 19th signing goes through and the nuclear program
04:28negotiations go through over the next 60 days? I think this war has changed everything. We're not
04:33getting back to the Middle East of, you know, February 27th, 2026. It's, as we've said,
04:40it's put in a more hard-line, more militaristic and less risk-averse Iranian leadership.
04:47Israel will continue, as we said, seeking military solutions for what it sees as the existential
04:53threat of Iran, to include Gaza and Lebanon. The six GCC countries are going to try to find a new
05:02security system that works better than the existing U.S. security umbrella worked. It doesn't mean they're
05:10going to give up on security alliances with the U.S., but there might be some hedging and there's going
05:14to be some serious rethinking as to how to avoid a recurrence of what just happened. And that might mean
05:22many or most of these GCC countries seeking to patch up relations with Iran, especially because it seems
05:30to be the case that Iran will maintain control of the Strait of Hormuz or at least retain the ability
05:37to
05:37close it anytime it wants to.
05:41And look, you bring a very interesting point and a party in all of this that we can't ignore,
05:46and that's the GCC countries and their strategic relationship with the United States. How do you think
05:51that changes shape going forward? I mean, we reported last week that the UAE, which was hit
05:57very hard by Iran at the start of this, met with Iranian officials from the UAE, met with Iranian
06:03officials for the first time face to face. Other countries in the GCC are trying to get to take a
06:08sort of neutral position right now. How do you think the relationship changes with Iran,
06:16but also with the United States? Well, again, I think that the relationship,
06:21I think you have to specify among and between different countries in the GCC, they'll all have
06:25different responses. For example, the UAE will maintain, if not strengthen, its security partnership
06:31with the U.S. and with Israel. Other countries like the Kingdom might look at it differently because
06:36the one thing they've learned is that even if they maintain the security relationship they have with
06:42the U.S., they don't have a good defense for missiles and drones. And so the big-ticket items
06:50that they've bought from the United States, spending billions of dollars that they've burned through
06:55to defend against these cheap Iranian missiles and drones, it's going to be years and years before
07:02those are replenished, because the U.S. has to replenish it for itself. It has to restock Israel.
07:07So the GCC countries will be at the back of the line. So I think each of the GCC countries
07:12are
07:13going to think long and hard. But at a minimum, I think all of them are going to try to
07:17maintain
07:18or try to build a better working relationship with Iran out of necessity.
Comments