The 'devil will be in the details' in a deal with Iran: Jake Sotiriadis

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Now, let's bring in retired Air Force intelligence officer Jake Satiadis. He's also a national security strategist in Hudson Institute senior fellow Rebecca Heinrich. Great to have you both on this very important day. So, largely negotiated, Rebecca, is what we're hearing. What are you thinking at this critical stage?

[00:00:18]>> Well, I think it's really important to take in mind what President Trump did this morning, which is he he pumped the brakes on the whole thing. He said, "We're not going to rush forward." So that means that, you know, if there was a deal to be signed yesterday, like that was kind of the flurry of the media reporting that there may be a deal yesterday, President Trump is not satisfied with it at this point. Um, I'm also hearing from sources close to I have a better picture of what's going on with the deal. A couple of things that just corroborate what reporting just had for Fox, which is that any kind of removal of the blockade that the United States would be willing to do must be in response to the Iranians demonstrating that the strait is open. So, this is not going to be based on promises of the Iranians. They actually have to show that they're not going to allow these IRGC militia to fire into the straight.

[00:01:03]And the United States is not going to be removing any single US forces that are in the region. So, you know, the United States is still ready to resume military operations if the Iranians do not comply with their aspect of the deal. And then, of course, we have this this question about what the Iranians have even agreed to on the nuclear question. That's very important to President Trump. We don't have any clarity on that point at all, Mike.

[00:01:23]>> Jake, what is your reaction to what we've learned and what are you most watching for at this stage? Mike, I think for where we look at things developing right now, you notice the narrative has changed since the beginning of combat operations three months ago where the narrative coming out of the administration and what we were looking at was weakening Iran's military and of course preventing Iran from ever getting a nuclear weapon. Now, of course, the Iranian the Iranians have switched things by closing the straight of Hormuz and the immediate priority is opening up the straight of Hormuz because that's exerting all this economic pressure not only on the United States but also on the global economy.

[00:01:58]So, the devil is going to be in the details. I'm not convinced we are very very close to a comprehensive deal. This what we're talking about at this stage would be for about a 60-day period of trying to open up the straight and get to some areas of agreement. But at the end of the day, my biggest concern is that we opened up uh these combat operations 3 months ago. The Iranian regime is still going to be left in power. So, we may have a tactical victory or some sort of composite deal now that gets us to temporary economic relief. We're going to have to revisit this issue in two, three, four, five years because the same players, the same extremists in tan are going to be in power.

[00:02:34]>> Prime Minister Netanyahu is talking about reopening the straight of Hormuz.

[00:02:38]He's also talking about preparations for final negotiations on the nuclear issue.

[00:02:43]How critical are those talks?

[00:02:45]>> Well, there I mean this is really the whole ballgame. The whole point and President Trump has said over and over again that this terrorist regime cannot have a nuclear weapon. And and I have said from the beginning that that means that the Supreme Leader Junior who who is supposedly still alive cannot be the one that ultimately calls the shots because he's so committed to the Islamic Revolution. And so we're still at the sticking point about who is even calling the shots in Iran. There's been some significant concern expressed by the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Roger Wicker. It's Ted Cruz.

[00:03:14]These are individuals who support President Trump's agenda. They've supported President Trump's um really bold uh decision to go in for Operation Midnight Hammer and an Epic Fury. And they're very concerned that we still don't know who is negotiating inside the Iran regime. We can't trust him, but we certainly can't relieve sanctions until we actually have all of the requirements met for American security.

[00:03:34]>> And Jake, it sounds like you're taking a cautious approach until we see the fine print on the deal.

[00:03:39]>> Absolutely. I think the devil is going to be in the details and certainly this deal will be no exception to that.

[00:03:45]Clearly, we need to open up the straight of form. That's the immediate priority.

[00:03:49]It seems that we're going to table the nuclear file for a little bit, build some flexibility into that for negotiation space on both sides uh of this issue. But ultimately, we're going to have to come to some resolution on the enriched uranium in in Iran because again, I think a lot of people are asking themselves, are we better off now than we were at the beginning of combat operations? If that whatever deal results in the Iranians still even controlling some sort of aspect of the strait and not resolving the nuclear issue, we're going to have a lot of questions and the verdict will still be out.

[00:04:17]>> Jake, Rebecca, thank you so much.

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