00:00You've described this deal as variously terrible diplomacy, a disaster, a mistake, and a trap.
00:06Why the harsh criticism?
00:08Well, there really isn't much of a deal there.
00:10I mean, this focused, obviously, on Trump's desire to get the gasoline prices at the pump
00:17for American consumers down.
00:19And to do that, he wanted to open the Strait of Hormuz, get all that Gulf petroleum from
00:24both the Iranian and the Arab sides of the Gulf out into global commerce and bring the
00:29price down.
00:30Almost everything else in the deal is very much put off into the future, particularly
00:36the critical question of Iran's nuclear weapons program.
00:41And we can see already with the discussions in Geneva in the past couple days and what's
00:47happened there, that already we've lost the focus on the Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, and
00:52the other questions, while Iran concentrates on protecting Hezbollah in Lebanon.
00:58So I don't think there's much promise of any long-term success here.
01:04I think this is very much in Iran's interest, simply to start discussions, kick the can down
01:09the road as far as they can, and hope that Trump's attention is diverted elsewhere.
Comments