Iran Is No Longer Holding Back And Israel Is Now In Danger | John Mearsheimer

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Seems like we are winding down with a few hours left here. Um, we're at this brink brinksmanship moment here. Uh, does Iran blink? Does the United States blink? And who do you think holds all the cards?

[00:00:12]Well, I think it's not in America's interest to go back to war. Uh, I think we have a deep-seated negotiating a settlement here. And the reason is if we go up the escalation ladder, which is effectively what going back to war would mean, uh the Iranians hold the cards, not the Americans. President can Trump, President Trump can talk about how powerful the mil American military is and all the wonderful things that he thinks it can do. But nobody can tell a plausible story about how escalating this war, whether with ground forces, naval forces, or air forces, produces a favorable outcome for us. So, I think we have a deep-seated interest in negotiating some sort of settlement. And for that reason, I would be surprised if President Trump doesn't work out some sort of arrangement to keep the ceasefire in place and facilitate negotiations in Islamabad. I would actually be surprised if he uh attacks Iran. Completely surprised because who knows for sure exactly what's going on in his mind and in the back channels as well. But my sense is that we're not going to go back to war.

[00:01:23]>> And what we're seeing is rhetoric that continues to repeat. And that's why you see the memes now about Groundhog Day.

[00:01:30]Uh and so, you know, can the president spin it in a way that gets him out of bombing? or will it just be what seemed to be the initial strategy, which is inflict suffering on the Iranian people through attacking their infrastructure so that they demand Iran bend the knee.

[00:01:52]>> I think he can spin it for two reasons.

[00:01:54]One is the public is overwhelmingly against this war. I don't think the public wants to see uh the war start up again or the shooting start up again.

[00:02:04]But the second thing is that the markets the markets look good when President Trump is talking peace and when it looks like war is about to start up again. The price of oil shoots up and the market the stock market goes down. So I think it would be reasonably easy for him uh to spin this uh in a positive way even if we uh would conclude if we looked at it carefully uh that it was uh him backing off not the Iranians.

[00:02:35]>> I mean this you jumped on I played the soundbite from Trump on with Joe Kernan this morning on CNBC on a which is a stock market news channel. Um and uh it would have only been one stage worse if he went to Bloomberg TV and and did this announcement that he expects more bombs to fall, more bombs to fall on Iran. And as soon as he made that announcement, the price of Brent crude oil shut skyrocketed once again on that announcement. So why do you think he chose like going on a a business news show in the morning to make this proclamation?

[00:03:09]>> I'm actually surprised that he did. I do think that he believes that talking tough uh will coersse the Iranians into coming back to the negotiating table, number one, and number two, making concessions once they get to the negotiating table. Uh he thinks he has a lot of leverage. He thinks the military instrument that he has is a big stick that uh will produce a lot of uh successful results uh if he wields it in an effective way. And I think he's wrong in that regard. And the mere fact that every time he talks about going back to war, oil prices rise and the stock market falls tells you that those two institutions understand full well that going back to war doesn't make sense.

[00:03:55]>> A lot of White House inserters Tucker Carlson among one of them has said the president didn't really want to do this war. He acted when he he says he acted in person like he didn't want to do it, but he had to do it anyway. So, what do you think are the forces pushing him to continue to say this? Do you think it really is about a nuclear weapon or is there something else?

[00:04:19]Well, I think that the New York Times has written two big articles on the decision-making process and the second of those two articles in late March uh based on extensive interviews pretty much lays out the story and it's quite clear that President Trump was convinced by Prime Minister Netanyahu and the head of Mossad, a man named David Barnea, uh that if he used military force in conjunction with the Israelis uh in a shock shock an awe campaign uh where we decapitated the regime. This would lead uh to the almost instant collapse of the Iranian regime. Uh there would be a popular uprising from below and the end result is that some regime would some kind of regime would come into place uh that would dance to our tune. Uh President Trump really believed I think that uh we had a war formula. We could win a quick and decisive victory. What's amazing to me about the whole process is that almost all of his adviserss told him that this was not a good idea. Uh and some of them told the president, including the head of the CIA, that uh they were fundamentally opposed. And General Kaine, who is his handpicked chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told him that he had or we had no warinning strategy. Nevertheless, President Trump went ahead. and he went ahead in large part because the Israelis uh bamboozled him into thinking that he could win a quick and decisive victory.

[00:05:51]>> I'm just I keep reflecting on your book, The Israel Lobby. It seems like you have these advisers that have surrounded the president and for in large part have been telling him this is a this is a nightmare. So what voices do you believe he's listening to that he believed that it was going to be a quick march in they would kill the Ayatollah and this thing would wrap up in 4 days?

[00:06:12]Well, he listened to the Israelis. Uh he listened to head of the head of MSAD. If you read the Israeli press, uh there say that David Bara, the head of MSAD basically lived in the White House that he uh spent so much time in Washington trying to convince President Trump uh that a shock and a strategy would finish off the regime regime and lead to a new regime that was attuned to our interests. Uh, and of course, Prime Minister Netanyahu for him, uh, attacking Iran is, uh, his Moby Dick.

[00:06:44]Uh, it's been an obsession with him for about 40 years, and he's been beating President Trump over the head for ages now to go in and finish Iran off. And I think they were able those two uh and a lot of Trump's advisers as well uh who are closely tied to Israel like Jared uh and Steve Whit surely helped in the process to convince President Trump that we had a war-winning strategy. And of course we didn't. People like JD Vance and John Radcliffe, the head of the CIA were correct.

[00:07:16]>> Happens though since you've studied the Israel lobby so acutely. They got their way. They got the war they wanted. It is not playing out well for Israel on the world stage. They're So in your I guess estimate, what will they do next? If they've lost global public opinion and they've lost this war, it seems like that despair could be equally dangerous.

[00:07:42]>> Well, I think in terms of global public opinion, that doesn't really matter to the Israelis. Uh I think if you look at their behavior during the genocide, it's quite clear that they don't care uh what the global public thinks. Uh I think what's much more important is where uh we are in this war against Iran. What President Trump is trying to do is to shut down this war. Uh he wants a settlement. And the reason that he wants a settlement and he's willing to make compromises with the Iranians is because he understands that there is a real danger that the global enemy will go off a cliff. And President Trump therefore has a deep-seated interest, to put it mildly, in ending this war as soon as possible. But the Israelis do not want him to end the war because the Israelis understand full well that we have failed to achieve our objectives in this war.

[00:08:37]It's really quite remarkable when you look at what's happened over the past 50 plus days. Uh the United States and Israel started off with four clear goals. Uh one was regime change. Two was to do away with Iranian missiles. Uh three was to get Iran to stop supporting Hezbollah, the Houthis, uh and Hamas.

[00:08:57]And then four was to eliminate uh Iran's nuclear enrichment capability once and for all. We've achieved none of those goals and indeed we've created a situation where Iran now controls the straight of Hormuz which it did not control the day before the war. That would be February 27th. So we have effectively lost this war and what the Israelis want us to do is not quit but to restart the war and to achieve those goals. When you look at the straight of horm because you brought it up, there's a lot that you said there I want to unpack over the next few questions here.

[00:09:31]But the straight of Hormuse blockade you've said is not only ineffective, it's counterproductive. The United States basically admitting or President Trump that we'll have sort of a permanent presence there. Uh how does that help the United States at all?

[00:09:45]>> Well, what happened here is we tried to get a ceasefire. Uh and two of the key elements in that ceasefire were numberies would stop bombing Lebanon uh and number two the uh Iranians would then open the straight of Hormuz. And this past Friday we had a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in place and the Iranians indicated that they were going to open the straight of Hormuz. So it looked like all the elements of the ceasefire uh were in place and that would facilitate the discussions that were supposed to take place today and tomorrow uh in Islamabad. But what happened is that President Trump and I do not understand why said that he was going to keep the US naval blockade of the straight of Hormuz in place, right? Which in effect is saying that keep the blockade on Iran in place. Unsurprisingly, the Iranians turned around and said, "We're reclosing the straight." And that helped. And and if you look at why we're not going to have this meeting today or tomorrow in Islamabad, it's in large part because the Iranians in that the United States end its blockade of the strait. So, President Trump, if anything, has undermined any chance at this juncture of a meaningful negotiation uh to end this conflict. Uh it's just hard to understand what he was doing.

[00:11:12]And by the way, I would add that one of the reasons that we did not have a blockade on the straight uh before last week was we wanted that Iranian oil out in the global oil market to keep oil prices down. We were allowing the Iranians to ship oil through the straight or Hormuz because we thought it was in our interest to have that Iranian oil uh out in the market. But once you go to a blockade of the straight, a US blockade of the straight, that oil no longer comes out. And if anything, that just undermines our position from an economic perspective. So all of this behavior by the president just does not make any sense to me at all. Yes. But a couple weeks ago, we had Professor Mandi on the show and he recommended a book called Going to Thran uh by actually their American foreign policy experts talking about the decades of reneggging on dente. Is that how you say that?

[00:12:11]>> Dant, I only read it. Uh with Iran and this is consistent with what the Clinton administration did to Iran with what Obama has done to Iran, ignoring them, pulling the rug out from under them.

[00:12:24]They have made sincere efforts uh to make negotiations. So this is really a bipart. It's an extension of the uni party. Why have we done this for so long? Are you able to sort of see a puppet behind this nonsensical behavior?

[00:12:40]>> Absolutely. If you read the chapter on Iran, we have a whole chapter on Iran in the book on the Israel lobby that Steve Walt and I and we lay out in great detail. Iranians moved uh at different points uh over the years especially in the 1990s uh to develop some sort of rap proont with the United States. The Iranians understood that it was not in their interest to have a permanent hostility with the United States. And of course, President Clinton, as you'll see, understood that right off the bat and he wanted to move towards some form of rage. But what happened is the law moved in and told him that was inexcusable. Uh he just couldn't do that. That uh Iran had to remain the devil incarnate. And that's been the case uh for a long long time now. Uh and as I say, you want to remember that for Prime Minister Netanyahu, uh Iran is his Moby Dick. And that means for the lobby, uh Iran is Moby Dick. and the lobby and Israel work hand in hand to make sure we have hostile relations with Iran. Even though Iran is not a threat to the United States important to understand that the idea that Iran is a threat to us makes no sense at all. It it just isn't.

[00:14:00]>> I saw Peter Morgan getting into it with you the other day because he's arguing that they fund Hezbollah. Your argument of course is that well that has nothing to do with us. that has a direct connection to Israel and why are we involved in it to begin with?

[00:14:12]>> Well, also may I point out that Hezbollah originally wanted a relationship with the United States and George Bush said no and they did not in fact want to align themselves with Iran.

[00:14:21]That was plan B for Hezbollah.

[00:14:23]>> So I just I guess Professor Netanyahu now has it seems like he's given up trying to take on Hezbollah headon. Um they tried it against it seems like they keep trying this and it keeps failing and now is trying to really create like a civil war inside of Lebanon. Is that how you see it?

[00:14:41]>> Absolutely. Yeah. I mean the Israelis went into Lebanon in 1982 with their tail between their legs. They had a devil of a time occupying Lebanon which is why they left. Then they went back in in 2006.

[00:14:56]Uh and it was a quick uh and decisive defeat for the Israelis and they pulled out of Lebanon. Uh and here we are with the Israelis back in southern Lebanon and uh having a devil of a time dealing with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Uh and furthermore, they continue to bomb Lebanon. But they can bomb Lebanon forever and ever just as they bombed Iran uh in the recent war and in the war last June. But do they produce a victory as a result of all that? No. Is Hezbollah defeated? No. Is Hamas defeated? No. The Houthis defeated? No.

[00:15:34]Is Iran defeated? No. Uh the Israelis believe like many Americans do that you can use military force to solve what are essentially political problems. And sometimes you can do that, but not often. And there's no way that the Israelis can deal with the Hezbollah problem or the Hamas problem uh without a political solution. But they refuse to develop some sort of policy, some sort of political solution for dealing with these groups and instead they think they can just pound them into the ground. But it just hasn't worked very well. And in my opinion, it's not going to work well.

[00:16:10]>> What I was going to say, stay right there. We have a bunch of more questions for you. You're going to take a quick break, grab some water. Uh we want to ask you about war crimes. Uh particularly US Ambassador Mike Walls announcing on Meet the Press this weekend that you know bombing infrastructure, you know, civilian infrastructure, bombing roads, bridges, hospitals, and otherwise uh is essentially part of the game, seems to be fair game now uh in this war. I want to talk about that.

[00:16:36]Plus all of these refineries that have been going up in smoke. um get your sense of the global oil shock and what's what's in store for the the broader global economy. So, if you will, professor, just we'll take a quick break and we'll be back with you in just a moment if you're if you're kind enough to stick around. He is not interested in going back to war against Iran. And I think if you listen to what you just read, I think it's an artful uh explanation for why he backed off. He's putting the source of the problem uh on the Iranians. He's saying the problem here is that they can't figure out what they're doing because the left hand and the right hand are not working together.

[00:17:18]And he being the generous leader that he is is going to give them time uh to work out a position and then they can go from there and hopefully they'll be able to negotiate an end to the war. So he is, you know, in a very uh crafty way uh uh getting himself out of the mess that he got himself into, uh with all his bluster is the question, but what is the what is the uh off-ramp for President Trump in this situation? Are we seeing now maybe the pieces of the off-ramp starting to be built here?

[00:17:55]It's hard to say exactly what the off-ramp is because there are probably about seven or eight big issues that have to be solved. A lot of the focus is on the nuclear enrichment issue. Well, we don't even know what the deal is regarding nuclear enrichment. But there are a whole slew of other issues that have to be dealt with. uh like the question of uh who controls the strait, what's the future of US military bases in the region? What sort of security architecture are you going to put in place to convince the Iranians that they're not going to be attacked again?

[00:18:29]What are you going to do with reparations? What are you going to do with sanctions? I could go on and on.

[00:18:34]There just a lot of big issues.

[00:18:35]Hezbollah, Hamas, uh and the Houthis and Iran's relations with them. So all these elements have to be worked out to get some sort of meaningful agreement.

[00:18:46]>> Well, it's also because the president today on CNBC specifically said that using force is his greatest sort of cudgel in this, you know, to use bombs, use the threat of bombs. Um that's that's how he can get them to come up with a unified proposal. That's how he can get him get get them to come to the table. And now he's basically admitting that, well, they're too fractured. We're just going to step back and allow them to come up with something on their own.

[00:19:10]I don't understand.

[00:19:11]>> It's so funny when you put it that way because who buys that like, oh yes, grand and merciful.

[00:19:17]>> Well, we get them to negotiate through through killing them. That's how that's how it works.

[00:19:22]>> But but you you want to this is not to disagree with you for one second, but just to reinforce your point, you want to remember and we bombed them heavily for a long long time and we did not succeed. If you look at where we are today, we have not achieved any of our goals. And for me, that means so far we have lost the war. And President Trump seems to believe that even though we've lost the war by bombing them up to now, he can now restart the bombing. And for some reason, it's going to do all these wonderful things that it was unable to do from the start of the war up until the recent ceasefire. And of course, this is a foolish argument. We have no military option here. It's just very important to understand that. And actually, if we begin to escalate, I believe that plays into the hands of the Iranians. I have long argued that if I were playing the Iranians hand, I would not have gone to Islamabad. I would not be talking about going to Islamabad in the next couple days. I'd say to the United States, go ahead up the ante. go up the escalation ladder and let's see what happens to the international economy. And as the international economy, which I uh liken to the Titanic heading towards an iceberg, gets closer and closer to that iceberg, I think Iran's leverage will grow by leaps and bounds and they'll be able to get an even better deal than they would get now. But the fact is, President Trump is not playing a strong hand here. He is playing a remarkably weak hand here. And the problem he faces again is that the Israelis don't want him to end the war.

[00:21:07]The Israelis understand that we have lost that we have not achieved their goals and they want him to continue.

[00:21:14]President Trump that is they want him to continue pounding Iran to escalate. Uh but Trump knows that that is not a war-winning formula.

[00:21:24]>> Here's this is JD Vance. This has kind of gone viral. This is from the Iranian embassy um in Indonesia put out this meme of President of Vice President Vance just standing there waiting.

[00:21:35]>> It's a Mr. Bean >> Mr. Bean meme.

[00:21:37]>> And so they did exactly what you said, not last this week. They know showed.

[00:21:42]They didn't show up.

[00:21:43]>> Yeah. They weren't going to. And so to save face, they basically said, "Well, we're not going to send JD Vance. We're going to put a pause on that. Otherwise, he'd be sitting in an empty room."

[00:21:50]>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, again, as we were talking about before, uh the problem here is the US blockade, effectively a blockade on Iran. Uh the Iranians are insisting that we take that blockade off. And my guess would be that President Trump will work out some sort of arrangement uh over the next couple days so that the blockade is taken off, the US blockade is taken off so both sides can come to uh uh Islamabad and begin to negotiate. But you want to remember as I was saying before, there are a whole slew of issues that have to be settled here before you can shut down this war. It's not like there's just one issue which is nuclear enrichment. And even in the case of nuclear enrichment, that is a really tricky issue. So I think it's going to uh take something of a miracle to get any kind of meaningful agreement, especially when you consider that the Israelis and the lobby here in the United States will be doing everything it can or everything they can uh to undermine uh any agreement that President Trump tries to come up with.

[00:22:57]>> Up and I want to talk about the oil shocks. And we had Professor Pap on the show yesterday who's made the argument that things have accelerated now for this, you know, global global catastrophe um in a way that maybe we didn't anticipate before. But and now we're also going to see, of course, the fertilizer troubles, the food shortages, and potential famine problems. Uh here's just a few minutes ago. Um oil prices once it go back down. They went up, they skyrocketed this morning and then they they plummeted after the president just announced this extension of the US ceasefire. Um, but let's the the global economy right now and where you see things playing out both for the United States and frankly for Europe which seems to be on the edge of disaster.

[00:23:40]Well, just to talk about the Gulf itself about uh 20 million barrels a day nor came out of the Gulf and the uh world economy needs about 100 million barrels a day. That's where the 20% figure comes from. Uh we make the argument that uh 20% of the world's oil comes through the Gulf. So that's 20 million barrels out of 100 million barrels. Uh I would estimate that somewhere on the order of 9 to 10 million barrels uh are now getting out which means that somewhere between 10 and 11 million barrels are bottled up there. Uh and furthermore uh there's quite a bit of oil Saudi oil coming out of the Red Sea. Uh and the Red Sea is on the other side Arabia from the Persian Gulf. Uh so if we ramp up the war, right, if President Trump uh goes hard after uh Iran, what's going to hear is that the amount of oil that comes out of the Gulf uh will be close to zero. And furthermore, uh the Houthis and Iran are almost certain to shut down the Red Sea. And given all the uh damage that's been done to the international economy so far, if you uh take into account what would happen if the Gulf is completely shut down and the Red Sea is shut down, you're talking about the Titanic eventually hitting the iceberg.

[00:25:16]This again is why Trump can just not go up the escalation ladder. When you talk about what Bob P was saying, Bob was talking about the situation today in light of the fact that some oil is still coming out of the Gulf. Uh, and a lot of oil is coming out of the Red Sea. That's where the Saudi oil is coming out. So, uh, the situation is not as dire as it would be if we shut down the Gulf completely. So, that's the oil and gas story. With regard to fertilizers, roughly onethird of the world's fertilizers come out of the Gulf. And the fact that fertilizers are so important for providing food for people all around the world, especially in rather poor countries, uh, shutting off the flow of fertilizers out of the Gulf is going to have disastrous consequences. Huge numbers of people are going to starve to death. Furthermore, it's quite clear that helium is not coming out of the Gulf. that is absolutely essential essential for developing microchips. Aluminum the Gulf is a big provider of aluminum that's been cut off the flow of aluminum out of the Gulf. Uh furthermore, jet fuel and diesel fuel is been cut off in serious ways and there's talk that uh that in Europe they only have about six weeks left of jet fuel for their airplanes. So the consequences are already quite stark and as you move forward it's just going to get worse and worse and that's assuming that we don't attack Iran. You want to remember the argument that a lot of people are making today is that President Trump just has to solve the problem right away. In fact, he should have solved the problem yesterday just so we can begin to repair all the damage that has been done. Well, if that doesn't happen and the status quo remains in place, you're just going to have more and more damage. This is the point that Bob Pabe is making. The additional point that I'm making is if you go back to war, the situation gets even worse because the Red Sea will be shut down. The Gulf will be almost completely shut and we will really be in deep trouble. Then >> the cup is half full with the professor because you seem to be indicating yes, this is bluster. he can't really do it and he knows this and yet he has escalated in some quite terrible ways starting like you said with you know a war bombing a school of young girls. So can we account for the fact that it seems very illogical but he's done some he's done it anyway many times when it all it always seemed illogical.

[00:28:01]>> Well, there's a difference between starting the war and then escalating. He started the war thinking that he was going to win a quick and decisive victory. This is when that trash where those young girls were killed. Um but he was under the impression that he could win a quick and decisive victory early on. And then when he didn't win a quick and decisive victory, there's no question he escalated because he thought that increased bombing, more and more bombing would bring the Iranians to heal. But that didn't happen. And then he moved to a ceasefire and he has not been that reckless since then. He he has not been anxious to go back to bombing.

[00:28:45]Uh and what he did in fact was turned to the navy. You want to remember that militaries have three instruments they can use uh to either coers or defeat an adversary in combat. One is the army, one is the air force, and one is the navy. And what President Trump started with was the Air Force and naval aircraft, right? That's what he started with, air power. And that didn't work.

[00:29:12]And there was talk that he would go to a ground invasion, but he's not gone to a ground invasion. And he's not going to go to a ground invasion. He just doesn't have enough combat forces in the region.

[00:29:23]Plus, he doesn't want boots on the ground. So, air power failed. No ground power option. And what did he turn to?

[00:29:30]He turned to the Navy and he turned to this blockade. That's the real coercive leverage he believes he now has on the Iranians. It's the blockade. But the blockade is of limited utility. And that's why he's talking about going back to bombing. He's not saying I can keep the blockade on and the blockade is a war-winning weapon because it's not. And there are all sorts of complications associated with the BL blockade we haven't talked about that illustrate this. But the point is he's now talking about going back to bombing which he hasn't done for a few weeks now. And the reason he hasn't done it for a few weeks now is it doesn't work. And the reason I don't think he'll go back to that is because it won't work. It'll just make a bad situation even worse. He has no military solution here. He can't bring the Iranians to accept his demands with military force and that's why he has to negotiate. And in fact, he's playing a losing hand. So he's going to have to make some major concessions to the Iranians. And again, as I keep emphasizing, the problem he faces, the reason he's in so much trouble is Israel and its minions in the United States will go to enormous lengths not to let him make a deal with the Iranians.

[00:30:54]>> Well, as you're making all these great points, there's one huge variable sitting at the table, and that is the Iran that is the Israelis. Um, and we heard from the head of MSAD just a week or so ago saying we will not end this war until we have full regime change in that country. And then of course the the courting of President Trump through MSAD and making sure that they're carrying out his carrying out their plans. So what about the Israeli variable in all of this? Will they allow President Trump to not stop bombing?

[00:31:25]>> Well, look, they will go to great lengths to do that. And I think the fact is that President Trump likely to reach a point where he feels he has no choice but to play hard ball with the Israelis in ways that no US president has ever done that. And the reason is that if he doesn't play hard ball with the Israelis and tell them that he's going to take a deal with Iran and they just have to swallow that fact, then the international economy at some point is going to go off a cliff. This just can't go on and on on. Something has to be done to shut this war down. Uh and uh that means the Israelis cannot get what they want. Again, what the Israelis want here, as was clear from your comment uh regarding what the head of Mossad said, is they want regime change. Well, good luck. If anything, this bombing campaign has reinforced the regime's position inside of Iran. Uh and it's caused a rally around the flag effect. So, regime change is much harder now than it was on February 27th. How are we going to get regime change? We're going to unleash the dogs and tear Iran apart. Uh we're going to wreck it as a civilization. I don't think so.

[00:32:49]>> A week ago, I think you said that President Trump's only solution here is surrender. Uh do you think that that's still the case?

[00:32:59]I think that he basically has to concede defeat and he's going to have to accept most of uh I think that he will be able to get the Iranians to make certain concessions because the Iranians will conclude that if they get enough concessions from the United States uh uh it makes sense uh to not prolong the war and cut a deal. But uh what exactly those concessions look like is hard to say. If you asked me to describe what a likely deal looks like, how you deal with all the different elements are on the that are on the table. I couldn't really do that. Uh I don't know, you know, what Trump is willing to give away and what he considers important. I think the big issue for Trump and I think for the Israelis is the nuclear enrichment issue. I think if Trump can get uh a deal on nuclear enrichment that looks like a great improvement over the JCPOA, the JCPOA of course was the 2015 uh nuclear agreement with Iran. If if Trump can get a much better version of the JCPOA, he may be willing to concede on a number of other points uh such as the fact that Iran controls uh the straight of horm moving forward and it can put a toll booth in place uh and it can use the money from that toll booth uh to take care of reparations. I mean something along those lines. And then Trump will have to concede on all sorts of miss all sorts of issues like the missiles, support for the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah and so forth and so on. But uh there's no way there's no way we're going to come out of this looking like we won.

[00:34:50]>> Right. We'll get a concession or two, I believe, and I think we'll get a concession or two on the nuclear enrichment issue, but we won't win. We will not win in my opinion a complete victory on the nuclear enrichment issue.

[00:35:05]The best that I think Trump can do is get a get a deal that says where he can say it's better than the JCPOA.

[00:35:13]But but we've lost this war. We started a losing >> Phil has a question.

[00:35:17]>> Yeah. Philip on our team has >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Go ahead, Philip. So, so my my my big thing like and I think like one of the other factors that's not really come up very often is like at what point does the rest of the world decide that this is an act of war against them? Like if we're going if they're how long are people going to sit there and let the US destroy the global economy? Like there are other countries out there. It it just it amazes me that they're allowing it to happen. Like at what point does everybody else step in and say, "All right, you're done."

[00:35:46]>> Well, you're absolutely right. the rest of the world is shaking in their boots.

[00:35:50]There's just no question about that.

[00:35:51]This is why I believe this and the Russians put pressure on the Iranians to go to Istanbul.

[00:35:57]Uh it's why the Chinese have been working with the Pakistanis. They're both close allies. Uh they've been working together to facilitate negotiations. The Chinese and the Russians and every other country on the planet understands that if we hit the iceberg, we're all we're all finished.

[00:36:14]It would be a total disaster. be like the great depression, worse than the Great Depression in the late 1920s, 1930s. Uh so uh you can rest assured that there is a tremendous amount of pressure being put on President Trump by other countries to shut this war down. I have no doubt about that. But the problem you want to keep in mind is that the United States is an incredibly powerful country and it's pretty much free to do whatever it wants. Uh, and President Trump is the kind of leader who doesn't care that much about what other countries say. As I like to point out, he is a supreme unilateralist.

[00:36:53]He is not someone who's interested in multilateralism or working with allies or working with institutions. He does what Donald Trump thinks is the right thing to do. Uh and that makes it difficult.