Transcription
The the US is, I guess, in a war now.
Well, not anymore.
Famous last words.
Fair. We are in a ceasefire that I feel very good about.
Okay.
That we announced. I know this will air later, but that we announced the ceasefire. We announced the the peace agreement with the Iranians yesterday.
Yes. I've learned so much about war because of this war. Um, in part because I'm an interviewer at the time of war, and so I've been having lots of conversations with lots of people about the nature of war, and I've learned so much. Frankly, I didn't know anything about Vietnam and really the psychology of war. Yeah. And how, like, when you start a war, Robert P. said this to me. He said, "The thing people underestimate about war is when the bombs start dropping, politics changes both where the bombs are dropping and at home."
Sure. And I, I to some degree think that with the Iran warning now, that's like exactly what happened. From my assessment of it, which is it looked like it was going to be quite straightforward: drop the bombs, take out the leader, um, the people rise up, which is what, um, the president had said he had encouraged the people to rise up when those bombs dropped and Kmeni was taken out. But then what then happened? What it's again, I don't know what I'm talking about here, so please correct me. Is it looked like the country kind of fractured into all of these sort of little pockets of militia and milit Um, I remember I think it was Hexath saying it just takes some time for the carrier pigeon to get out to where the soldiers are, the outpost. And it speaks to how the fracturing had happened.
And then I heard the president and I think yourself multiple times say, like, "We don't really know who we're negotiating with," or words to that effect, because we've taken out the first and second row of leadership. And then I, I thought, "Gosh, we're in the same situation again where the bombs started dropping, unintended consequences were there's now not one central leadership to negotiate with, but also politics at home has shifted." That, I mean, the approval ratings of, I got this graph of the approval ratings had started to plummet at home. And politics is changing on the ground there as well. Is this another forever war?
Well, the answer is no. Um, and, you know, this is always when I, I talked about this, this conflict, I always said Donald Trump learned the lessons. It's actually that's almost unfair to him. He didn't learn the lessons of the Iraq war because back during the Iraq war, he was saying this was stupid. We should get out of Iraq. He was saying that back then. And I think that while there were certainly some objectives that we had in this conflict, I just never had any doubt. Now, obviously, I'm an insider. I saw the president's deliberations and thought on this, but I, I never had any worry that this would become a multi-year expedition with no end in sight because I knew that we had leadership that was trying to define the objective very narrowly, accomplish the objective, and then see where we are.
Mhm.
And so, you know, if you go back, you talk about this, this street uprising. Certainly, there was some thought that it would be possible that the Iranian street would rise up in the face of this thing and that you would see, you know, a new government that was much more pro-American, much more pro-Western. What what happened though is, and what we knew we could do, is degrade their military. That was the that was actually the primary objective. Yes, the president talked about the Iranians rising up, but the primary objective was always to degrade their conventional power so that we could be in a better position vis-à-vis Iran. So that whoever was calling the shots, they didn't have a loaded gun to our head anymore.
Okay? And that's what we knew we could accomplish. And then there was always the question about, okay, now that we've accomplished that, where do we go from here? And, you know, one, one of the things that I, I feel just, just quite good about this moment that we're in is the president basically bought us an option. He said, "We can weaken their military, destroy their conventional military, we can change their leadership, and then we can actually present a pathway to the Iranian leadership. Where do we go from here?"
Like, you said something very interesting that was true two months ago that's not true now. Two months ago, I would have said, "I have no idea who we're who we're negotiating with." Absolutely. Now, I feel very confident that we have an understanding of who we're negotiating with, what it is that they care about. Yes, there are fractures in their system. Well, there there so so so so the Iranian system. This is oversimplifying it a lot, but it has kind of three poles. There's the political pole, the people who are most responsive to the leadership. That's the foreign minister, the president, the speaker of the parliament. Okay? There's a clerical pole, meaning the clerics who actually hold ultimate authority in the Iranian system via the supreme leader, the clerics, the the religious leaders. And then you have the military, particularly the IRGC. Okay? All three of these poles interact with each other in in weird ways. And one of the things we definitely two months ago, we were like, "Wait a second, who has the upper hand? What does this group want versus this group versus that group?" But what what I feel pretty confident about now, I mean, this this we're taping this interview, I guess, June 15th, right? What I feel quite confident about right now is that we know who we're dealing with and the fractures really aren't the the, you know, the system is kind of coalesced. And what they're telling us, which is interesting now, is it the street rising up? No. But what they're telling us is, you know, what, you know, obviously they're not like endorsing anything that we did. There's a lot of mistrust, a lot of animosity. But, you know, fundamentally, we've done one thing vis-à-vis the United States for 47 years, and we shouldn't do that thing anymore. We want to change. And if you, the Americans, are willing to actually negotiate with us to have a conversation, yeah, we're willing to make the long-term commitment never to develop nuclear weapons, but we want a totally different economic arrangement than what we have with the West right now. So, that's where we're at right now is actually figuring out the details of what that would look like. But where where we stand right now, I actually feel pretty good about it. I feel good that we actually could have a better relationship with that country. I feel good that they'll never have a nuclear weapon. So that'd be like a real loaded gun they would have to the West. But I also think that there is a general consensus that their in in their system that their relationship would be different than than, um, than the past.
The other thing, just this is very important, the underappreciated element. Like this is like if I was ever going to write a book about Donald Trump's foreign policy. And by the way, he hates people who write books, not like books like that, but insider books where you take trusted information and put it into a book. Doesn't like that. But what I would, what I would say is he's so non-conventional in the way that he does everything, but certainly in the way that he does foreign policy, that things that were previously unimaginable are actually on the table. So when Donald Trump says to the Iranians, "We want you to be a successful country. If you give us what we need on nuclear, we'll take the sanctions off your country and allow you to prosper." That would have been unthinkable 10 years ago in any Democrat or Republican administration. But it's thinkable because Donald Trump is just like, "No, the the way things worked in the past are dumb. We're going to do something new." And that's that's what he's putting on the table. We'll see if they meet us. But right now, I feel pretty good about it.
The other term I'd never heard before is Strait of Hormuz.
Yes.
I've heard so much about the bloody Strait of Hormuz. Um, did you have any idea that the Iranians would cut off the Strait of Hormuz? You, you did know that going into it.
It was a major. As soon as you see these media reports like the the Trump team was caught off guard.
What would happen in the Strait of Hormuz was a main fixture of the conversation that we were having about whether to do this, how to do this. So, it was certainly a variable. Now, now you can never predict with 100% certainty what people are going to do. But the basic bias that we had going into it is that they would try to cut off the straits. They would try to jack up energy prices. They thought, and I think this is true, they thought that they could cut off the straits for us, but actually keep the straits open for themselves. That ended up not being true when we imposed the blockade. But fundamentally, we, we knew some version of what would happen. But we also went into it saying, "If they do this, fundamentally, it's a short-term thing." So like Brent crude is sort of the main crude oil index, right? I think the highest it got was $126 per barrel. Right now, sitting here, it's around $82 a barrel. It's fallen off a cliff because there's a broad recognition that, yeah, it was a short-term shock, but not a short-term shock that's going to permanently alter the world energy economy.
It's quite a powerful weapon they have in their arsenal just to take shutter the world's economy and piss off your people at home at the gas pump. It's quite like it's quite a.
Well, uh, geography really matters in warfare, it turns out. And yes, they have great proximity to the Strait of Hormuz. But but again, if you just go back two weeks ago, one of the things that's interesting, really underreported, um, but I think, you know, your listeners will obviously be interested in, is if you look at the amount of oil that we were getting out of the Strait of Hormuz, we, I mean, the United States, the Gulf Coast coalition broadly speaking, the Arabs in the Gulf, right? You look at it, what it was, call it April 1st, it was like close to zero. You go to May 30th, early June, it was many, many million barrels of of oil a day. Now, not enough to eliminate the shock, to be clear, but we were seeing significant increases in oil traffic. And again, I think that's one of the reasons why we're having a good negotiation with the Iranians is they recognized, yes, they have this leverage point, but maybe not forever. And it's one of those cards you can play, but you can't necessarily play it week after week after week. It degrades in power. So, I take your point. Yeah, they have this geographical thing going on. But I think that geographical leverage point was weakening over time, and it's it's why we are where we are. I think with a very good deal.
Knock on wood. We have to see it completion.
Because if you're them, you go, "Well, all I've got to do is wait two years because the president is going to be, you know, removed from from office in two years' time. It's going to be at the end of his term. So, if they could just wait it out for two years, they can hope that a new political leader that comes in, um, might be more charitable with them." Yeah. But if if if Donald Trump has two and a half years left in office, I think the Iranians recognize they did not have two and a half years to weigh things out. One is, as we got more and more oil out of the strait, their leverage point decreased. But in some ways, more importantly, like, look, you look at Persian culture, you look at the history of Iran. This is one of the proudest and oldest civilizations anywhere in the world. They don't want to be like a Libya-style rump state. They want to have a much brighter future. Like, I think that that's actually true. Now, there's a question about how to get there, and obviously there's a lot of animosity between the two sides, but I do think something has fundamentally changed in the way that regime sees the world.
The, um, the deal that you have on the table.
Yes.
Now, okay. Excuse me if I'm skeptical, but I said to you before we started recording, I watch everything.
Yes.
So, I've watched every, if if you do an interview, Hexath does one. If the president does one, I see it. I see the whole thing.
I don't know why, but that I, I'm very, very interested in US politics because it does impact the whole world.
Sure.
And as I've watched these interviews, there's been lots of false deals. You flew out there to Pakistan and you flew right back. The deal wasn't done. Um, I think I saw a report the other day that said, uh, the president has said roughly 30 times that there's a deal done or that there's a deal on the table, usually on a Sunday, then it's not, then we go back into this negotiation thing. So I'm like, I don't have any trust anymore for for a deal getting done.
This one's real.
So.
Okay, good. Okay. So.
People can always change their minds, but this one is real.
For sure. So what, what does that mean? Does it mean that there's a contract that has been sent with terms on it, and they've provisionally, like a term sheet, said, "We agree"?
Yes.
That's exactly what's happened.
Okay. So they've agreed to a term sheet.
Yes.
And then, as is the case in business and investing, that becomes more of a formalized contract.
Correct.
And then that's signed.
That's right. So what is in the term sheet?
Well, a few things. So the the first is that the Straits of Hormuz opens effectively immediately, and the blockade is lifted effectively immediately. Now, when I say effectively, that's doing a little bit of work there because, you know, part of what's going on is there's a different risk tolerance for different shippers in the Gulf. So some, again, like I said earlier, some of these guys are already shipping a lot of oil through the Straits of Hormuz right now, even though the Iranians are threatening to shoot at them. But what, what this means is that over time, we're going to de-mine the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians are going to stop shooting. We're going to lift our naval blockade, and you're going to see, I think, a pretty quick resumption of full flow of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. That that's number one most important thing.
There's mines there. Mines in there. But it, it's, you know, it's a very big waterway. There's a lot of traffic moving right now. So we know where the mines are. They're not everywhere. And, you know, again, the ships are able to move. The biggest obstacle and impediment to ships moving right now is actually not the mines themselves. It's the Iranians who are shooting drones and missiles on the other side. Now, I say that we have seen a precipitous decline since we signed this agreement. We've seen a precipitous decline and even that happening. So, you're already again seeing the fruits of this negotiation that we have. Number two is it contemplates the Iranians giving up their highly enriched stockpile of material, committing to a long-term inspections regime on their nuclear program, and in exchange, having a totally different economic relationship with the United States of America. So like, there's a stack of of sanctions that the US has on Iran that is like 60 pages long, that is incredibly destructive to the Iranian economy by design, right? That the the deal is, you're not going to behave like a normal country. We're not going to engage in normal trade and transactions with you. What this agreement provides is that if the Iranians take significant steps to behave like a normal country, they're going to get significant reintegration into the world economy. And I think that's that that that is in some ways the most profound thing. And what the United States gets out of that is is the long-term guarantee that they never become a nuclear power. I think people always sort of, it's hard to to appreciate how temporal this is. The Iranian nuclear program has been completely destroyed. Like it doesn't exist right now, but over time, you can try to rebuild it. And so what we're trying to say is, we don't want you to rebuild this program. If you make real commitments and verifiable commitments that you're not going to, then you're getting a lot of economic benefits on the side.
You dropped those big, uh, bunker buster bombs.
Correct.
Um, it's very fascinated by all of that, that whole series of of military operations. And, um, it, the nuclear material is now buried pretty deep underground from what I understand. With this deal, do you get to go and get it? Do they hand it over to you? What happens?
So the way the deal is is structured is that the Iranians, the Americans, and the International Atomic Energy Agency will actually work together to go get the material and destroy it. That's that's the basic idea is that we're all going to work together. Again, the the agreement contemplates a new era in relationship. So the idea is that we're all going to try to work together, destroy this material. And again, if that happens, the Iranians are going to have a totally different economic relationship with the West. And if it doesn't happen, then the United States is no worse off.
And do you get to check that they're not just going to a different mountain and building new nuclear weapons?
That's where the verification element comes in. But we have a very good sense. You know, you can probably guess why. We have a very good sense of what's going on in the country of Iran. We could probably keep that material just permanently buried, but we don't want to do that. We actually want to solve the problem, and we want the Iranians to have a different relationship with us, and that's what we're trying to do.
And the specifics of you being able to go and check that they're not just building new nuclear weapons. It sounds to me like the specifics haven't been defined yet, like how those checks take place.
Well, it's, yeah, it's like you said, it's it's a term sheet where we've got broad agreement on principles and how we're going to approach the negotiation, but there are a lot of details that we got to figure out from here.
So I've got Strait of Hormuz opens, um, nuclear inspections, but also a coalition to remove the nuclear waste.
Correct.
Um, from that they get the opportunity to participate in the in the economy, and sanctions will be lifted.
Yep.
Is there anything that's in that term sheet that's not included there?
I mean, there are other like little details and things like that. There, you know, obviously the permanent cessation of hostilities. We're trying to bring in a a regional era of peace here, but that's pretty much the main thing.
And Israel, um, there were some, uh, some interesting words exchanged. Yesterday. Again, I watch everything. So, I saw that the the Fox reporter had called Trump, I think yesterday, because Netanyahu had started firing some bombs, and he had some select words, kind of like your grandmother's words.
Yes, indeed.
Apparently, he said, uh, Trump said he'd phoned Netanyahu and told him he had no [ __ ] judgment. Why did BB have to do a [ __ ] attack? I'm so pissed off. An hour before we were supposed to sign the deal, Trump called Netanyahu a very difficult guy. He should be very thankful for us for doing this because if Iran had a nuclear weapon, Israel wouldn't be around for two hours. Um, lots of cussing at Netanyahu and what he had done. You, I've heard you actually say that you think Israel and the United States have two different objectives as it relates to, I don't want to mischaracterize your words, but.
Well, what I would say is that we're different countries with different interests. I think the United States, sometimes people characterize, you know, Israel is is a good partner to the United States. That is true. But sometimes people mischaracterize it and say that Israel and the United States are fundamentally always aligned. It's just not true. We're different countries. We have different needs. We have different geographies.
Do you trust them?
You know, I don't trust anybody. Um, when it comes to international affairs and diplomacy. Do I think that they're they're very capable? Absolutely. Do I think that again, when we have shared interests, we work together very well? Absolutely. But but do I, but I, I don't trust anyone. And I, I think that we, we just have to continually be laser-focused on what our interests are. And, you know, what the president said about BB is, you know, sometimes, you know, we are the world's superpower, and obviously we're Israel's most important ally anywhere in the world. And sometimes to ensure that we are able to accomplish our objectives, the president has to have a very frank conversation with the prime minister of Israel. Sometimes he does that. Sometimes everything works smoothly, sometimes it doesn't. It's just the nature, like any relationship, right? Any relationship is going to have moments where you have to be more direct. Sometimes you're working together, and sometimes there's a little bit more conflict.
The world's opinion and thoughts about the US-Israel relationship.
Yeah.
Has never been more widely discussed.
I agree. And I, I almost, I almost don't know why, but it's, it seems to be the case that over the last, I'd say, six to 12 months, people are really now questioning what is this relationship and who is, who is the dominant partner in the relationship? What, for someone, and just in super simple terms, because I don't really know a lot about this particular point.
Sure.
What is the relationship and why and where did it come from?
Well, you know, I'm, I'm hardly an expert in US-Israeli relations, right? But but let, let me just say they're obviously in some ways the only democracy in the Middle East. Okay. Uh, very advanced economy, very high-skilled people, technological ingenuity. I mean, it's a country of 9 million people. They generate a lot of the world's inventions just from 9 million people. It's a very impressive country economically. They're also probably better at intelligence collection than any country in the world. So there again, and and again, because they're an advanced economy, because, you know, they're people generally speaking want to live in peace and harmony, just want to go to work and raise their kids, there are a lot of shared interests and a lot of shared objectives. And I think that, you know, over time, especially for example, when one of our biggest problems going back to, you know, the early 2000s was the rise of Islamic terrorism, um, Islamic radical terrorism, I should say, there was a sort of broad recognition that there's a lot for us to work on. But but again, even if you go back to then, the early 2000s, very large alignment between Israeli interests and American interests. But even in, like, the early 2000s, the Israelis were much more worried about Iran than the United States was, right? We were much more worried about al-Qaeda, like a different branch of Islamic terrorism. So even when we've been very aligned, we're just different countries that have different objectives. And, you know, I will say, having seen the president of the United States operate, I feel quite confident that, you know, they are the junior partner. We're the senior partner. We're the world's superpower. That's the way that it works. But, you know, again, sometimes it's, it's like with the UK. I would say the UK is our closest ally, our oldest ally. I'm not just saying that because you're a Brit.
Do you trust the UK?
Uh, again, I don't really trust anybody, but do I like, do I like a lot of Brits? Absolutely. Do I have a, I mean, incredible fondness for the United Kingdom as a country and a culture? Absolutely. And I really like a lot of the people, even the Labor government, even though they're politically misaligned, uh, with with me and and the rest of the Trump administration. But, you know, like we have disagreements from time to time. So we work really well together, and sometimes we have misaligned interests, and we have to pursue our interests in the best way we can.
What does, and please do tell me, like, what does Netanyahu want? Because I sit here with these experts, and they say they want to overtake the whole of the Middle East. They want to run the Middle East.
What does he want?
I don't know. I don't know. Um.
I, well, I mean, I, I don't, I can't get inside somebody's head.
Have you asked them what they want? What do you think?
Well, I, I think that in this particular operation, again, where interests were aligned is we wanted Iranian conventional military power to be much weaker, to be decimated. You know, the the Israelis shared that objective. Do I think that there are maybe I don't know if BB thinks this, but do I think there are people within Israeli society who would like to turn Iran into Libya, basically a failed state with 90 million people? Probably. But I, I don't know that BB wants that. I've actually never had that conversation with him. It would be an interesting conversation to have. I'll tell you right now, is Iran turning into a Persian Libya good for the United States of America? Absolutely not. And that's one of the reasons why the president has set us on this course of working on our interest, which is the elimination of the nuclear threat and a and a change dynamic with the Iranians, which is very much on the table.
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