00:01I think at this point, it's hard to say for sure what President Trump wants to do in Iran.
00:07And I'm not even sure he knows exactly what he plans to do in Iran.
00:11But there's no denying that after the midterm elections, his sort of political runway is a lot longer.
00:17He doesn't have to face frustrated Republicans wanting cheaper energy prices in the United States.
00:24And he can more effectively, you would say, put pressure on the Iranian regime because he doesn't face the same
00:33political fallout.
00:34With that said, I think you mentioned earlier the Wall Street Journal reports about President Trump rejecting these talks.
00:42I would also highlight the same Wall Street Journal came out with another report saying that the sort of economic
00:48pressure on Iran has never been greater thanks to increased sanctions on Iran.
00:54So what we're seeing right now is Iranian flagged airliners actually prohibited from flying in the way that they used
01:00to just a few weeks ago because of the Trump administration's pressure.
01:04So I imagine that we very well may be in a slightly better position for the United States in just
01:10a few weeks' time.
01:11A lot of the sort of hawks who thought that Iran would quickly capitulate thought that Iran didn't have much
01:18standing.
01:18We shouldn't forget that the protests that we've seen in Iran over the last 20 years or so, 25 years,
01:27have only expanded.
01:28The sort of high watermark of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the government of Iran's sort of support amongst the
01:36population there was years ago.
01:39It has only decreased with basically every year.
01:41And now, thanks to the protests we've seen over the last year, it has been wider than ever in terms
01:47of not only the diversity of protesters, but the intensity of the protesters.
01:53So right now, the popular support is not on the government's side, but really it's a question of the economic
01:58support.
01:59And the Trump administration's pressure that they are increasing in reportedly unprecedented ways very well may bring them to the
02:08table, but still not sure or clear whether they would be willing to capitulate to what the Trump administration wants.
02:17The polling on energy and on pocketbook issues is different than foreign policy.
02:22Rarely does foreign policy really dictate U.S. elections.
02:26It's only when American lives are being lost is when we really see it.
02:31And we saw that during the Iraq war, during President Bush's midterm elections.
02:37But we really have not seen major, major pressure on foreign policy in the U.S. voting booth for some
02:45time.
02:45But I think the fact that energy prices are so high and the fact that even a good amount of
02:51Trump voters say that energy prices are one of the main contributors to those high prices are the war in
02:59Iran.
03:00I think that does not bode well.
03:01In addition to energizing a frustrated American voting population, it also disenfranchises or does not motivate Republicans to go to
03:12the voting booth to support their preferred Republican candidates.
03:16Right now, both sides are trying to gain as much leverage as possible before they go to the negotiating table.
03:25Both sides are really posturing publicly, saying that they have the cards, they have the power.
03:30I don't see something in the short term, but it's hard to imagine that we will be here for many
03:36years to come.
03:37It does not seem all that tenable, both from not only the political dynamics of this, but also just the
03:45fact that there simply are new avenues of getting energy elsewhere.
03:49That I imagine the status quo that we saw a year ago is probably not something we're going to be
03:55returning to.
