Iran Knows Better / Pitfalls of Negotiating w/US Lt Col Daniel Davis & Matt Hoh

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]One thing about this administration, it may be incompetent, but it certainly carries out what it wants to do. And if you go back just seven months, you know, you've seen this administration go from Ukraine to Gaza to Lebanon to Venezuela to Greenland to Iran, right? And now there's the prospect of Cuba. So is Donald Trump able to say enough is this is good enough in Iran? is able to say that I'm going to blame the straits of Hammuz on the Europeans not doing their fair share. We've got a pretty good accommodation with the Iranians.

[00:00:34]Actually, they're going to start letting ships through. This oil issue is going to it's going to it's going to take a few months to shake out, but by the time the midterms come, gasoline is going to be back down to $2.90 a gallon in the US. Uh I mean, is that what his calculation would be? and then now pivoting to Cuba because we've seen the administration very capable of moving from one issue to the next, one country to the next. We also have to look at the Iranian side. Now, just a few days ago, there was some pretty defiant statements coming out of Iran. Golly Buff here saying that the Iranian public stating that the enemy is seeking Iran's surrender through economic pressure and he said that's not going to happen. And then you had the uh the National Security Commission spokesman saying that the axial story that was that broke all of this about how there was an end inside. He said that's just a bunch of wishful thinking. And he said it in in response he said if the United States doesn't surrender and offer the necessary concessions um then we're not going to end this as well. Um the one of the members of parliament added that we must continue our policy of maximum control of the straight of Hormuz. We're not going to give that up ever. Um and then the this was I guess yesterday from the uh ISNA uh news service in Tyrron.

[00:01:52]They said the Iranian side is insisting on three main axis in their negotiations. Compensation for damages, lifting sanctions on blocked assets, and lifting the maritime blockade. Uh so that's kind of where they had been. It's like saying, "Hey, we're going to ask for demands here. We are never giving up to control the straight." But then today, uh there was an interview with another academic out of Tyrron that's a lot of people go to, Dr. Isadi. Uh, and in the first part of the interview, I'm about to show you this piece here. Um, he he was pretty consiliatory and he was definitely not uh as as I was defiant, I guess, as the other words were. And he's saying, "Yeah, we will consider this and maybe there is some room for some kind of a negotiated settlement because they were asking him the questions about what's in the Axios piece and what was Fox News was reporting, the Wall Street Journal." And he didn't seem to like say, "No, those things aren't any good.

[00:02:42]We we might do them." But then in the end he said this.

[00:02:46]>> If the United States wants to increase the chances of Iran accepting these type of proposals, they need to make sure that they lift all the sanctions, terminate all the sanctions and give Iran's money back. These things needs to happen. If if they don't, then I don't think there will be a lot of appetite for engaging in these type of activities because it looked like a surrender to the United States. And I don't think there anybody in Iran that is interested in surrendering to the United States.

[00:03:16]>> So is there a path from the Iranian side as far as you're aware where some version of what President Trump is saying any version of that can be agreed to by the Iranian side and then we get these dual blockades opened up. What do you think? I want to say this because I never thought I'd be in this position, Danny, and I have a feeling you feel the same way where I feel more comfortable interpreting, analysing, analysing, analyzing, right? Trying to understand a foreign country, a foreign group, whatever, over than over the Americans. And I feel much more comfortable trying to understand the Iranians and trying to figure out what they're going to do next. What do they really mean, what are their intentions, etc. than I do with this American administration. I never thought I would say that, right? And you now we're talking about Iran and I can tell you the confidence I have now to speak about this, you know, it's it's 10 times what it was just about the American administration because that's what we're dealing with, right? We're we're we're we're dealing with with Donald Trump and his minions and we can't depend upon anything. We can't depend upon anything.

[00:04:25]We can't even depend upon the fact that they're going to believe that the that they're going to say the sky is blue, right? But at least with the Iranians, they've been consistent. And so now with with Professor Oati there, you know, the things that he was bringing up and that were being presented in this idea of of of a moratorium on enrichment for 5 years, things like that, that's consistent with what they've been saying, you know, for months now. That was what was on offer on the table before the United States started this war. And so at the Iranians when they do change, if they do modify or they do evolve in their position, it's understandable. You can you can see why they made that decision to move to a different position, right? Or you can expect them to do that because again they've been consistent. they've been predictable because they're it's it's based upon actual interests that they have and they have clearly stated objectives etc etc etc. So, I mean, you know, with the Iranians here, I I I think what we saw was you saw Donald Trump announced Project Freedom, which was even a worse uh a worse uh uh operation than Joe Biden's peer in Gaza, right? You know, lasted, you know, at least the pier in Gaza lasted a week. I think >> good analogy, you know. I mean, >> less long than that did, we'll say.

[00:05:42]>> We never saw thought we never thought we were going to see that happen, right?

[00:05:46]you know, so great. You and uh you know, the project freedom lasted what 24 hours, maybe 36 36 hours, >> you know, and then immediately the Iranians put forward. Plus, we can get into what happened during that, right?

[00:06:00]Shots being fired throughout the Gulf.

[00:06:02]We're still not entirely sure of what happened, who fired it, who who shot up what. But you know what you saw though come out at the end of Project Freedom was this Iranian announcement of, okay, here's the here are the ways that you come through the Straits of Hermuz, right? You're going to send an email authority. They they declared it.

[00:06:20]>> Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah. They that and this is how you're going to proceed.

[00:06:24]This is how it's going to work. I mean, so you have the president of the United States announced Project Freedom. Then a day later, a day and a half later, he unannounces it and then the Iranians say, "Okay, that's over. Here's how it's going to work." At the same time, as we we now know, uh, one of the reasons why Project Freedom fail was because the Saudis and the Kuwaitis were not going to go along with it. Uh, I mean, so now you start to see Iran's strategy of putting political stress, political pressure among America's allies starting to show real fruits. Right? Before that, it was all just commentary. It was all speculation. Are the Saudis going to do this? Are the Qataris going to do that?

[00:07:05]What's going to happen? And now you're starting to see the fruits of the Iranian strategy. Uh, UAE leaving OPEC, right? the Kuwaitis and the uh uh Saudis saying you can't use uh our airspace, you can't use our bases uh for your project.

[00:07:22]>> By the way, do you do you have any insight in as to why Saudi Arabia uh why that angered them so much?

[00:07:30]>> I because they want to see a resolution, I believe, because they they they've suffered enough. They've uh been uh abused enough. They've been America's buffer now for two months. Not just a military buffer, but also an economic buffer. They are looking at their shutins in terms of their loss of production, right? I mean, it's about a third for the Saudis, I think. And for the Kuwaitis, gosh, it's it's over 80% I think. Uh I was just looking at it yesterday and now I, you know, uh I I can't remember the exact numbers, but uh certainly the the consequences for them are real. And now Donald Trump's going to do this project freedom where he's going to use, you know, and we saw an F-18. This is this is if this is if this is the military event that defines the US Empire in its current form, in its real form, it's a$und00 million Super Hornet shooting up an empty tanker in the middle of the ocean. Right. So, we saw an American F-18 shoot out the rudder supposedly of an Iranian ship uh that was refusing to turn around, an Iranian ship that was empty, by the way.

[00:08:36]Uh but uh I mean I think the Kuwaitis and the Saudis saw this as escalatory.

[00:08:42]Uh and the Pakistanis as well cuz uh Prime Minister Sharif, you know, immediately put out a statement saying, you know, I'm so happy the Americans have come to their senses. Thank you uh Muhammad bid Salmon for you know doing what you had to do to get the Americans to drop this stupid idea. you that's not exactly what Sharief said, but it's >> a clear interpretation of it. That's >> pretty much there in the message, right?

[00:09:07]You know, I mean, so I I I think that's it. I mean, they've had it enough enough with this war enough. And what do we take then of the prostations from Marco Rubio? That epic fury is over, that the offensive campaign is over. Is that just their way of of moving on to the next phase? Is that just their way to get around the war powers resolution? As if they were ever going to pay any attention to that anyway, right? Right.

[00:09:34]I mean, it didn't matter to them, but or is it really mean that? Do they really mean that? No, the war is over for us, you know? So, getting back to your question about Iran, then I think Iran understands the position that they're in. And they're seeing the fruits uh being uh born of their strategy. Uh they're seeing the pressures on the Americans. They're seeing the economic warfare creep steadily day by day. We all can ignore the markets at this point. The markets are ridiculous. Uh and the markets will have a massive correction when it's time for that correction to occur. But I mean you look at the say even oil prices, you know, oil prices are significantly under.

[00:10:12]These are oil futures. People need to understand that this is for oil that's being delivered in the future, not what they're paying for oil today, the spot price. And so if you look and you see that Brent is down to a hundred barrel dollars a barrel or whatever. I think it's below it now. Well, that's not what's being paid for oil right now.

[00:10:31]It's 20 or $30 above that, right? I mean, so we can all just disregard the markets because they're they're they're nothing more than you know >> Yeah. You see it's down below. It's below >> 94. Okay.

[00:10:46]Yeah. And we can ignore that because the spot price is probably 125 130 today for Brent, you know. And so as inventories continue to drop, as these ships that should have dropped off their load of fuel, their load of oil, their load of of LNG, uh, and turned around and gotten another load, they're still at the at the point that they were at the end of February, beginning of March. you know, as all that comes due, as the reality of inventories, the reality of demand, um, and then of course all the byproducts, the fertilizer, the petrochemicals, the helium, all that is that I mean that there's a there's a latency with that as well.

[00:11:25]>> You know, we can talk about f uh farmers not being able to get their fertilizer around the world, but you and I won't see that in our supermarkets until August or September, right? And then it's going to be like later than that even because of >> even later than that, right? As well as too I mean any of those uh you know uh costs. So I I think the Iranians know they're in a good position uh that though because there's two sides of that coin even for the Iranian side because I've been seeing I've been tracking pretty close the the social media uh post of of several Iranian leaders uh and they are in their Persian language post uh saying lots of things like hey listen we we got to pull our elves together here. We can't, you know, like the companies, don't fire anybody.

[00:12:12]Keep them on because we have a lot of trouble. There's lots of shortage that are to medicine, uh, foods, other kinds of things. They that we have Besset has operation economic fury has to specifically tried to again to destroy the currency uh to cause it to lose its value etc. So the question is uh and do we have any independent you know independent way to find out is the pressure maybe getting so much on Iran that they actually are willing to concede to some other issues.

[00:12:42]I I mean the fact that I I think the fact that they're willing to offer say like on a nuclear issue a moratorum for five years is already a concession right that that that is a something that their hardliners would say this is a blow to our sovereignty uh we shouldn't have any agreement at all where we limit ourselves uh and you can't trust the Americans they've betrayed us twice in the last 12 months during negotiations uh they walked away from the JCPOA we told you they were going to do that you know I mean so I I think already what they're offering is is a pretty significant concession. the fact that the Iranians are I've seen the same the same post as you have Danny that the Iranian leaders are communicating to their public uh you know about the situation about the circumstances you know I juxtapose that to our leaders right who now I've in my head I've got the video clip of uh Leslie Nielsen in the naked gun standing in front of the exploding firework factory saying you know there's nothing to see here right or you Young Bacon, young Kevin Bacon in Animal House, you know, screaming all is well, you know, all is well, you know, you know, at the very end there. So, um, that that's that's kind of the juxosition as well is that yeah, even though they have that pressure which is real and it's significant and it's going to hurt, I believe that they are in a better place to weather that, to get through it. uh both uh you know as uh a total economy as a national system as well as silently than this country here where uh you know the idea that the Republican party with everything else going on has gone along with this war of choice uh you know the way the economy is performing uh the Epstein files the corruption right the uh attacks on American communities by secret police, you know, etc., etc. They've got this war and Yeah. There we go. Thank you, Gary.

[00:14:46]>> I knew he would have it. I knew it.

[00:14:49]>> You know, I mean, that's is that not is that not our leadership right now, right? The leadership of of of the in the White House, in the House, and in the Senate, is that not them right now?

[00:15:01]you know, I mean, so the fact that the Iranians are willing to openly say, "Hey, look, like you're saying, uh, you know, we we need to to to to to enforce uh uh, you know, conditions here because of the circumstances. And this is nothing that the Iranians haven't been through before, right? I mean, certainly, you go through what what the Iranian you look at what the Iranians went through uh in their eight-y year long war uh against Iran, I guess, excuse me, against Iraq. You look at just the decades and decades of sanctions that they have endured uh including incredibly incredibly harsh sanctions, you know, during uh the the the later half and of of the you know, especially from like 2011 2012 on into the JCPOA. So, uh, I I I think, you know, if I'm betting who's going to weather, uh, the coming economic, uh, uh, difficulties better, you know, I'd put my money on the Iranians. And, and that's not downplaying what they're going to go through. It's going to be, you know, their money is worthless, right? I mean, you know, everything else, but, you know, they'll get through it. They'll get through it.

[00:16:08]>> Yeah. And we're going to we're going to get some firsthand information later this afternoon with Professor Miranda who's going to be on the show at 2 PM.

[00:16:13]So by all means everybody should tune on that because then we get to hear straight from the horse's mouth and as people may know he was part of the uh Pakistan delegation that Iran took to Pakistan. So his his words carry a little bit more weight than just some academic. Uh listen, in in the amount of time we have left here, uh you mentioned about you know wararm mongering and uh other things like that and you mentioned a second ago Cuba and you know I just got to ask this is this here's you know is Cuba next in Trump's sights after Rubio Slan's incompetent communist I Matt what in the hell is going to Cuba?

[00:16:52]I mean just help help me make any sense of that even if it's wicked and evil help me make sense out of that. Why do we care anything about Cuba to to to the extent that we're going to talk about military operations and that's what is on the table here and I have it from very good sources very high up in the US government that that is very much on the table some kind of military action I mean against the country there's no oil there there's no alleged nuclear program there's no threat to us they can barely keep their people fed so why are we talking so brazantly about using military force this is like the a a college bully going into a grade school and saying, "I'm going to beat the crap out of this third grader. Why are we doing this?"

[00:17:36]>> And also too for the US military, while it's overextended and exhausted with after this fight with Iran, it was overextended before this fight with Iran. You know, a war with with Cuba that could be based out of KNIS. You know, the Cubans have I I I don't know, but I'm I'm going to I'm going to speculate and say the Cubans don't have any real air defenses. you know, I mean that that there that this would be this would be something that the American military even in spite of the exhaustion coming out of Iran could do. Uh but for me, why this is occurring uh the same reason as for why the war against Iran is occurring. This is this is what empires do. You know, you had uh uh certainly uh Iran in 1979 uh embarrass the empire, leave the American order uh and since then, the United States has been obsessed with putting Iran back in its place. And the same for Cuba and even more hurtful for the Americans in the sense that Cuba is right next door. It's 90 miles away from Florida. and the loss to American businesses uh following uh the deposing of the Batista uh regime in in 1961, you know, our our man in Havana there. Uh you know, following that, it was an embarrassment as a humiliation.

[00:18:58]And there were people who had real money, both corporations, individuals who lost uh because they're essentially plantations. their factories with, you know, what we probably describe as slaves, uh, were overthrown and gotten rid of in that in that. And so, you know, a lot of these exiles, these people, these descendants of of, uh, you know, uh, the regime that was overthrown in Cuba in 1961, when you talk to them to say, "Oh, yeah, my grandparents were blah blah blah." And then you realize that these people were running, you know, plantations. They were running factories with uh you know the worst imaginable conditions, paying uh almost nothing. You know, they they should have been overthrown. They should have been chased out of these countries. These people were praying upon their fellow Cubans, you know, in a way that the way the Spaniards had done, you know, for centuries. Uh so uh I mean that but the idea being is that this is something for uh 66 years has long been wanted uh by the American empire because uh the wrong has to be uh writed that that the order needs to be restored that the humiliation needs to be addressed and it needs to be avenged. I mean, so all those things and then you bring in the peculiarities of American politics. to bring in uh the importance of Florida and the American political system, the heavy prepoundonderance of of uh Cubanameans who had connections to the dictators regime uh in uh you know the same way too I think with a lot of like the Iranian uh with the vocality of the Iranian diaspora uh here in the United States. Uh most Iranians are most Iranian Americans are not in favor of the United States bombing Iran, but the vocal uh ones, the ones who have the microphones, all have some connection to the monarch, right? They're all somehow tied in to the royal the posed royal family and they want that restored. They want their good thing back. And so I I think for me that explains the bigger picture in all this. And then you can look at the individual components. You can look at say Marco Rubio, his own obsession with it, the fact that this would play well politically in Florida.

[00:21:19]But I think what the Republicans are probably looking at, and I'm sure Rubio is understands it this way, is that they're running out of time, that the uh ability to do this unhindered and unmolested uh may uh hit its peak at the midterms and that if the Democrats take control of the Congress, they will cause so many problems for the Democrat, for the Republicans, for the White House that these such things are not going to be able be what they devote their time.

[00:21:50]They could still do them, but the time, the devotion of time, right, the president's energies won't be focused here. It'll be focused on another impeachment hearing or whatever. Um although Hakee Jeff has already said that uh impeachment is not something that he's seriously considering. He's not interested in. So, we already see how the Democrats are going to play this