Ex-Nuclear Negotiator on U.S.-Iran Talks, Abraham Accords & Trump's Threat to Blow Up Oman

Added: 2026-05-29

[00:00:00]This is democracyow democracynow.org the Warren peace report. I'm Amy Goodman with Narin Sh.

[00:00:06]>> Tensions are rising in Iran and the Persian Gulf after Iran and the US traded military strikes early on Thursday, just hours after President Trump said he was getting closer to sealing a deal with Iran. Following the US strikes in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran's revolutionary guards say they targeted an unspecified US air base that was the source of the American strikes.

[00:00:28]Kuwait's military says it has activated its air defenses in response to a drone and missile attack and the US military is accusing Iran of violating the ceasefire agreement by attacking Ku.

[00:00:40]During a cabinet meeting at the White House Wednesday, President Trump warned the Gulf state of Oman, a longtime US ally, that it would face a bombing campaign if it entered into an agreement with Iran to share control over the Strait of Hormuz. This is an exchange with ABC News reporter Rachel Scott.

[00:00:59]>> Would you accept a short-term deal that allows Iran and Oman to control the strait? And would they have to open it immediately, or would you be open to that happening over a period of time?

[00:01:08]>> No. The strait's going to be open to everybody. It's uh >> And who would control it?

[00:01:11]>> International waters. Nobody's going to control it. We're going to watch over it. We'll watch over it, but nobody's going to control it. That's part of the negotiation that we have. They would like to control it. Nobody's going to control it. international waters and Oman will behave just like everybody else. So we'll have to blow them up.

[00:01:29]They understand that they'll be fine.

[00:01:31]>> Have to blow them up. President Trump said about Oman, US ally. President Trump also said he felt no pressure from the looming midterm elections to make a deal. He also suggested signing a deal with Iran might be contingent on more Arab and Muslim countries signing the Abraham Accords. And we'd like to have the countries we were talking about with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, and the others. We'd like to have them immediately join the And Steve Wood is working on that with Jared and some others, but would like to have them join the Abraham Accords. It'll be historic if they do it. And we would I think they I think they owe that to us to be honest. I'm not sure we should make the deal if they don't sign.

[00:02:13]>> For more on all of this, we're joined by Robert Mali, the Middle East program director at the International Crisis Group. was a senior Middle East official under presidents Clinton, Obama, and Biden, and most recently former US special envoy for Iran in the Biden administration, co-author with Hussein Aa of the new book, Tomorrow is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel, Palestine. Uh, Robert, welcome back to Democracy Now.

[00:02:40]first talk about the US threatening to blow up its own ally, I should say Trump threatening to blow up Oman um around uh this uh around sharing control of the Strait of Hormuz and then go into the Abraham Accords.

[00:02:55]>> Yeah. Well, first thanks for having me.

[00:02:57]Listen, uh we could spend hours trying to dissect every statement by the president. It's not clear that it's particularly useful because he says the most extravagant things yesterday may have taken the cake in some respects threatening to blow up Oman, but also making this connection between a negotiation with Iran and expanding the Abraham Accords, including to Saudi Arabia and Qatar and making this strange argument that somehow they owe it to the president even though if anything right now what they have towards the president is real resentment because he's the one who got them into this mess. It's because of his unlawful unnecessary war that the straight of Hormuz is closed.

[00:03:35]So I don't know by what logic he thinks that they owe him something because he's going to get them out perhaps of the mess that he created. In any event, it's a completely illusory, elusive chase.

[00:03:46]There is not a chance at all that Qatar Saudi Arabia coming out of this war with this Israeli government and this uh under this in this context are going to normalize relations with Israel. One hopes that he just threw that out and will quickly forget it. But if it becomes in his mind a condition for a deal, there simply won't be one.

[00:04:05]>> And Robert, you were one of the uh key negotiators for the 2015 uh Iran nuclear deal uh during the Obama administration.

[00:04:15]And several people are now speculating that whatever deal uh emerges between Iran and the US, it will not be very different from the 2015 deal. Could you just elaborate on that?

[00:04:28]I mean, you know, the situation is different from 2015. Uh, so the comparison is going to be very inexact.

[00:04:34]Iran is not in the position it was before. It has discovered a tool, the control of Hormuz that it didn't really know it had or if it knew it had it, it wasn't prepared to use it. Its nuclear uh program is in a very different state than it was in 2015. In some ways, it's it's it's weak because it's been bombed.

[00:04:50]In other ways, it's strong because Iran has accumulated irreversible knowledge.

[00:04:54]I think the comparison in some ways is is sort of a a feudal exercise. I don't think I don't want the president to think that whatever deal he reaches is going to be worse than the JCPOA because that will just give him another incentive not to conclude a deal. I think the main question is number one, what this war shows and where we are today demonstrates that his decision to withdraw from the deal in 2018 was a completely reckless and and absurd one because we're now in a position where we're renegotiation renegotiating issues that had already been settled and negotiating a new issue that never should have been on the table in the first place which is reopening the straight of Hormuz. The one lesson though the comparison where I think some of the critics of the JCPO are having a very hard time with the current reality is that the the two main criticisms of the joint comprehensive plan of plan of action. Number one was that Iran retained its right what it considered its right to enrich uranium something that critics thought never should have been the case. And second the deal never addressed issues like Iran's ballistic missile program its support for regional allies or it's now its drone program.

[00:06:00]Whatever deal comes out of the current negotiations, one thing is for sure, Iran will retain what it considers its right to enrich and the deal will not touch on those other issues that I just mentioned. So the logic of the deal, even if the details will be different, the basic construct of the deal, which is nuclear constraints in exchange for sanctions relief, that's the only deal that's on offer. And again, we should never have been in the position we're now. uh you know the the president's decision to rip up the deal to impose maximum pressure sanctions and then to go to war has left us in a weaker position and without uh any option for getting a deal that would be dramatically different from the one that was concluded in 2015 at best.

[00:06:39]>> Well, Robert, you're back at the international crisis group. You were previously the president, now Middle East program director. Uh the latest uh crisis group monitor on Iran has of course as you have too now cautioned against any speculation about the deal because it's not clear exactly what it contains yet but also elaborates on a new institutional arrangement Iran has made around the strait of Hormuz. The so-called Persian Gulf Strait Authority was formalized by Iran's Supreme National Security Council uh earlier this month on the 18th 19th of May uh which quote and this is taken from the crisis group monitor uh uh document quote appears designed to turn ad hoc revolutionary guards interdictions into a permanent regulatory apparatus. Vessel seeking transit must file ownership details, insurance, documentation, crew manifests, and cargo declarations with the authority before receiving a permit.

[00:07:39]Now, this is presumably entirely unacceptable not only to the US but also to Gulf countries. If you talk could talk about the significance of this and where it might fit into any uh potential deal.

[00:07:53]>> Right. Well, so first just a reminder, I said it earlier, but we're now negotiating over an issue that wasn't even existing before the war. Uh, and the main the main topic of negotiation is opening the straight that was not closed prior to the uh launching of this illegal war. So that's that's point number one. Point number two, yes, what Iran it's discovered that it has this ability, again, it always had it, but it's now put it into practice of stopping and restarting and imposing conditions for naval for vessels to cross the street of Hormuz. That is something that is unacceptable under international law. It's unacceptable to the neighbors as you just said. The point is it's a reality. And so when President Trump says Iran will not be in control of the strait at the end of this if there's a deal, he's right in one respect, which is I suspect the deal will not entrench uh and formalize any form of control like the one you just mentioned. On the other hand, it's a simply it's it's a statement of fact that if at any point Iran is dissatisfied with the implementation of the deal or feels like it's being violated or for any other reason it decides to close a straight of Hormuz or to impose conditions, it can do so. But I do think I mean the the one of the reasons why the negotiations are complicated is that Iran is insisting that it wants some form of economic relief for the damage that was caused by this war. And the most obvious one from its perspective other than sanctions relief is imposing some kind of toll, some kind of payment system in the straight of Hormuz. Very difficult as you said for the for the neighbors to accept it. They're trying to see whether they could do something in which some of the proceeds of that tolling system or that of that fee system could be shared with other Gulf countries. That's going to be a very tough cell again for the for the neighbors. But the reality remains at this point Iran has proven and demonstrated that it has this ability to switch the light on or off in terms of transit through the straight of Hormuz. And that's something that's one of the legacies of this war that everyone is going to have to contend with.

[00:09:46]>> So the Iran monitor of your group, the international crisis group, has criticized the US position for quote being mired in confusion. Now, Trump says he doesn't care about the midterm elections, but there's been speculation suggesting, to say the least, that domestic considerations are weighing in heavily. Uh, and that may force Trump's hand to reach an agreement fast. Um, but according to other observers, this may no longer be the case following the Supreme Court's decision on redistricting.

[00:10:19]um if you can respond to that. Also, the war pushing uh President Trump's approval ratings to an alltime low.

[00:10:30]>> Yeah. So, obviously I'm, you know, I'm not in the president's head. It's not somewhere I'm going to speculate getting into, but I do think listening to him, and let's put it this way, if you're an Iranian official listening to the president every other day saying he doesn't care about the midterms, he's not in a hurry. I think every time he says it, they believe it's proof of the opposite, that he's sort of protesting too much, and he's trying to project an air of confidence, an air of of of not caring about what will happen at the midterms, what will happen to his political fortunes. I think that's very hard to believe, at least from their perspective. So they every time they say it they they view it as confirmation that they hold that upper hand in terms of who is more in a hurry to reach a deal. Now I think you know again watching the president myself I'm confused because you would have thought that given the poll numbers and this is one of the most if not the most unpopular war waged by the United States in decades. One can't even think of a precedent where there was not even a rallying around the flag uh you know initi um instinct at first. This has been unpopular from day one and it's only grown more unpopular since. It's having a drag on the economy. It's having a drag on the Republican party's prospects in the midterms. So, you'd think that the president would really try to get out of this war. And he's had many, many exit ramps since he first launched it. He hasn't really seized them. He's changed. He's gone back and forth. He's zigzagged. And I think what that reflects is the president is torn.

[00:11:52]On the one hand, yes, he sees the pol the politics. I'm sure that people his chief of staff vice president are telling him beware this is this is coming at a cost and he sees that on the other hand he's somebody who hates to appear weak he is determined to show that Iran has capitulated and surrendered and those two instincts can't coexist he's going to have to choose one or the other either he's going to want to continue this war until that elusive triumph which he won't achieve or he's going to have to settle for less than full victory and depending on the time of day depending maybe on who has spoken to him last, he seems to uh incline more in one direction or the other, which really is a reason why these negotiations seem to be going through all these ups and downs when we think we're going to reach a deal a week ago or a few days ago and now who knows.

[00:12:40]>> And Robert, finally, we just have 30 seconds. if you could comment on the fact that Iran has at least partially lifted its uh internet blackout in the country, the longest in history, 88 days, and what this might say about uh what the Iranian government feels its position is visa v its own population.

[00:12:59]>> Listen, I I don't know and I don't want to speculate. I'm not there. I'm not sure how widely open it actually is. So, I think you'd have to ask people who are there and who are witnessing it.

[00:13:06]Certainly, closing the internet has been a economic drag for Iran. I think they have found that you know it's very difficult to do business without the internet. I think it's a it's a great difficulty for them. On the other hand, they have security considerations. They are probably afraid of what some of the people in their country feel and also of outside interference. So, we're going to have to see whether it really is materializes and and how open it actually is. Um that's one of the slideshows in this in this uh conflict.

[00:13:34]>> Thanks for watching Democracy Now on YouTube. Subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications to make sure you never miss a video. And for more of our audienceup supported journalism, go to democracynow.org org where you can download our news app, sign up for our newsletter, subscribe to the daily podcast, and so much