- 2 months ago
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00:00I want to start with a term we just heard, a shaky ceasefire. You can add other modifiers to that,
00:05fragile, tenuous. I look at the reporting overnight. Amorphous, sure. An unnamed U.S.
00:10official told CNN after the U.S. strikes that the action did not constitute a return to major
00:15combat operations for now. Is this still a ceasefire as you see it, given what we've seen play
00:20out over the last three, four days? I think it is in the sense that the terms are pretty clear,
00:27right? I mean, when we actually see text or get briefed on text of what's in the agreement,
00:33there's not a lot of dispute about what's in there. And it involves Iran being able to get
00:37revenue on the front end through the sale of oil and the wave of sanctions on those sales
00:43in return for opening the strait and the end of the blockade and then some period of negotiation.
00:47I think part of what is going on, David, is that the posturing around what's in the terms of the
00:53deal
00:55is upsetting the ability to implement the deal and get into negotiations. You know, you have
01:01particularly on the U.S. side, I think, you know, President Trump's sensitive to criticism and
01:05sometimes he goes out and he says it makes threats against the Iranian delegation or he's kind of
01:10spinning the deal in a certain way that probably upsets the Iranian hardliners who then feel like
01:15they have to do something to demonstrate that they still control the strait of Hormuz.
01:19And so I think what you have here is negotiators have a text, but they're kind of hardliners on both
01:24sides, are probably not entirely happy with the fact that there's a deal at all.
01:29And then you get these kinds of incidents where there's kind of tit for tat.
01:32It's still a ceasefire unless and until these go beyond kind of one for one strikes.
01:38There's a very careful discipline, frankly, on the exchanges of fire that have taken place to date.
01:44If you see that start to spiral, then I think we're in a different territory.
01:47And some of those threats from the president have come while negotiators were literally in the room
01:51together. Talk to us as somebody who's handled some of these sensitive negotiations, how difficult
01:57it can be to keep those talks on the rails when outside factors keep trying to push in and can
02:02make
02:02people feel like they have to make a decision that they might not want to when they are genuinely
02:06trying to come to some sort of a deal.
02:09It's a great question because I can tell you, right, when we were doing communications
02:13around Iran nuclear negotiations, sometimes we would go out and talk about the kinds of
02:19concessions that we were pushing for at the negotiating table.
02:22And the Iranian negotiators would tell us, hey, you're creating huge problems for me with
02:26the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the more hardline elements inside of my
02:30government. You know, can we tone down the talk until the deal is done?
02:35I never threatened to destroy Iran or to, you know, potentially kill the negotiators.
02:41I mean, what Trump's doing goes so far beyond just a kind of normal effort to put the best
02:46light on a deal you're negotiating.
02:48So I can imagine, I don't know for sure if I can imagine that you've got these Iranian
02:53negotiators in a room in Europe.
02:56They're trying to put the fine-fishing touches on a deal.
02:58They've got some hardliners back home, the IRGC, who are much stronger today than when we
03:02denegotiated that deal, because the IRGC are the ones that control the Strait of Hormuz.
03:06They're the ones who fundamentally control the Iranian government.
03:09And so if something happens, if something is said that they don't like, well, they're going
03:13to demonstrate their capacity to shut down the Strait of Hormuz again, which is what they've
03:17been doing.
03:18And so I think, you know, it's not going to be easy, but unless and until the Trump administration
03:23and the president himself can kind of stay off truth social here, I think you might have
03:27these kinds of flare-ups.
03:29I want to take advantage of the experience that you had in those negotiations.
03:31We talk a lot about how this set of negotiators doesn't have the technical expertise that
03:36you and your colleagues had when you were brokering this now.
03:39Or even the support staff and the apparatus behind them.
03:42The legions of people with expertise.
03:45I'll ask you to be as optimistic as possible here, knowing now that we have fewer than 60
03:48days for some sort of resolution here.
03:51What could or what should this administration do to, when they come back to the table, when
03:55these negotiations continue, be able to marshal enough expertise or technical information
03:59to be able to make some advances here in these talks?
04:02Well, you're right.
04:03I mean, I think these talks are kind of the outlines of how do you get into negotiations
04:07around the nuclear program.
04:08And I think Qatar and some other countries have probably done a lot to help shepherd this.
04:12If you get into actual nuclear negotiations, you know, what are the constraints on Iran's
04:17enrichment?
04:17What kind of inspections regime is going to be necessary to assure that they're keeping their
04:22commitments?
04:22How do you kind of implement sanctions relief?
04:25You know, we relied, as you said, our negotiators.
04:28I mean, Ernie Moniz was a nuclear physicist, the Secretary of Energy.
04:31But underneath that, we had the best nuclear experts in the government.
04:34We had experts on Iranian politics.
04:36We obviously had experts on on sanctions so that you could figure out ways to get them
04:39relief without lifting everything.
04:41My advice would be to get the very best people you can find in the U.S.
04:45government.
04:46This administration is not, I mean, prioritize expertise.
04:49They prioritize loyalty or kind of deal making what Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff present
04:54themselves as.
04:55You need to know these Iranian negotiators, some of the same people that negotiate with
04:59us.
04:59They've been dealing with nuclear negotiations for literally decades.
05:03And my concern, David, is that actually there's going to be no deal.
05:07There'll be some deal to get into the talks.
05:10Iran will get a bunch of revenue from selling oil and getting to profit off those sales.
05:15That will lessen the pressure on their economy.
05:17They'll put in place some kind of tolling regime for the strait and they'll just keep
05:21punting.
05:21They'll just punt beyond 60 days and we'll never get a nuclear deal.
05:25And so Iran will get the revenue.
05:27They'll get to demonstrate they can sell the strait.
05:29But we really won't get kind of verifiable nuclear commitments.
05:32That to me feels like actually the most likely outcome, even if it's not the one that I would
05:36like.
05:36Ben, going against my nature here, I'm going to try to be optimistic and say that, OK, if
05:42there is some sort of a nuclear deal made, there's now the issue of what that will look
05:48like.
05:48Originally, the president said he wanted to remove all this nuclear material, what he
05:52keeps calling nuclear dust and what is actually canisters potentially buried underground.
05:56Now there is more discussion that it would maybe be able to be mixed down to a less weapons
06:03ready quantity.
06:04What is what are the drawbacks of doing that?
06:07What is the best solution?
06:09Is there a third option that we're not speaking about here?
06:12And where does the IAEA come in?
06:14Well, yeah, they shipped most of their stockpile out, the vast majority under the previous nuclear
06:19deal, negotiating the Obama administration.
06:21The problem with just diluting it down on Iranian soil is that they can kind of re-enrich it,
06:27right?
06:27They can kind of take it back up to weapons grade.
06:30I think if you're looking for some kind of third way here, your question indicates that
06:34the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is the impartial third party here
06:39that could, in some fashion, assure the down blending to a point where it's not usable for
06:45other purposes, that is shipping parts of it out of the country.
06:49So you're kind of lessening their capacity to kind of surge back to a stockpile capability,
06:54or perhaps even kind of take it into some kind of custody, if not inside of Iran, inside
06:58of a third country.
06:59You just want to limit Iran's capacity to move quickly in the direction of having enough
07:04fuel for a weapon.
07:05So you want less centrifuges operating at a lower level with tight restrictions and inspections
07:10on those.
07:10Ideally, no stockpile, if not a down blended stockpile under international supervision.
07:15That was easier to do when you had the UN Security Council as part of the negotiations,
07:19which we did.
07:20But still, I think getting the IAEA on the ground should be a priority for this administration.
07:26The optimistic scenario is that they're the ones who are kind of in charge of monitoring
07:30this whole regime.
07:32And this is going to be a crucial issue at the Ankara Summit here in a couple days.
07:36They're also going to talk about Ukraine, I assume.
07:38And Mark Ritter, the Secretary General, was at the White House this week talking about
07:41the state of play between Ukraine and Russia.
07:43Let's take a listen to what he had to say after his meeting with President Trump.
07:46He acknowledged that Ukraine is doing well on the battlefield, is doing well in terms of
07:51hitting some of the critical infrastructure in Russia.
07:55I really think that over the last three to six months, Ukraine is doing much better.
08:01Doing much better, Ben, seemingly despite the U.S.
08:04What do you make of the U.S.'s engagement here?
08:06And are you optimistic that the U.S. is going to do more here to take advantage or capitalize
08:10on the fact that Ukraine has taken very positive steps here, moving its attack lines
08:14toward Moscow and making some inroads?
08:17I think there's a real opening here.
08:19Because the way I look at this, David, is that for some time in the war, time was working
08:24for the Russians.
08:25They were wearing down the front line.
08:26It was a war of attrition that they were prevailing on, kind of inch by inch.
08:30Now, with these drone attacks deep into Russia, time is working for the Ukrainians.
08:34Like, they are imposing a cost on Russia, on the Russian economy, on Putin politically.
08:38And so that gives Putin an interest to actually make a deal in which he doesn't try to get
08:42everything he wanted.
08:43He came to Alaska for that Trump summit, basically demanding his surrender terms on the Ukrainians.
08:48My concern is that the Trump administration lacks capacity in this area, lacks credibility
08:53with the Ukrainian side, and has frankly been distracted by the Iran war and other things.
08:57I think what you need is some kind of impartial negotiating framework to come into play, because
09:03both Russia and Ukraine, for the first time in a while, do have some interest in seeing
09:07this war at least frozen, at least getting to a ceasefire.
09:11And so I think if the U.S. and Europe could put together some kind of mediating framework,
09:15there is a window to try to do something here, given the interest in both sides in halting
09:20the fighting.
09:21We'll see, though.
09:22And before we let you go, I do want to ask you your take on how the Russian population
09:26feels about Putin.
09:27Now, I know polling in Russia is either non-existent or completely non-reliable.
09:31And also, the other issue here is there's no real alternative, because he hasn't allowed
09:35any kind of alternative.
09:37I know pressure is mounting on Putin, but does that really functionally mean anything?
09:41And will it do anything to change his mind in this conflict?
09:45I actually don't think it matters in the near term.
09:48Putin's dug in.
09:49He's entrenched in power.
09:50He's getting older.
09:51This is his legacy.
09:53I think what we've seen in Russian history is that the kind of bill comes due later, right?
09:58It took many years for the war in Afghanistan to begin to contribute to crumbling the edifice
10:03of the Russian state, the Soviet state, that is.
10:06So I think he may be feeling a little more pressure.
10:08Frankly, he's also getting pressure from the right to ratchet things up and escalate in Ukraine.
10:12At the end of the day, I think if he feels like he's hit a cul-de-sac in the
10:17war, that
10:18might put some pressure on him to try to reach some kind of frozen conflict type settlement,
10:22which I think would be preferable for everybody.
10:24But in terms of kind of fundamental existential pressure on Putin, I think he's going to be
10:28able to withstand this for the short term at least.
10:32I don't know.
10:33I think he's going to be a little bit more serious.
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