Latest / FDD Morning Brief / Is this a done deal? | feat. Miad Maleki, Ahmad Sharawi, and Bradley Bowman

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Is this a done deal? | feat. Miad Maleki, Ahmad Sharawi, and Bradley Bowman · FDD Morning Brief

• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: All right, good morning.
• 0:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's Friday, June 12th, the multi-front war in the Middle East is now 979 days old.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm your host Jonathan Chanzer.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: Welcome back to another special sit repetition of the FDD morning brief.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, a lot is happening this morning.
• 0:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: It appears that there is a deal on the table.
• 0:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it doesn't look terrific so far from my vantage point.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot that is still unknown, but as Yaroslav Trophymov from the Wall Street Journal sums it up, and I quote, Iran's mayor news agency published the purported text of the draft agreement with Trump.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: It will keep the state of hormones under Iranian control.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: It will promise Iran $300 billion in construction money in addition to an immediate cash transfer of $24 billion, a suspension of sanctions and the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Middle East.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: Also a commitment not to bother Iran again about its missiles and broxies and restraining Israel in Lebanon the US gets an exchange a pinky promise to respect the NPT now that is a really negative view of whatever this deal holds and clearly not flattering, but let me just also note
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: Marinus is not exactly a paragon of legitimacy as far as media outlets go.
• 1:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: It is right with this information.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: This could be a complete mischaracterization of the deal or at least a very slanted one designed for domestic consumption.
• 1:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: This deal could be terrific for all we know.
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: That is certainly what the president has been saying.
• 1:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: but I am also seeing some reports that Israel, which is not part of this deal, maybe required a pull out of Lebanon and quit its fight against his Bala, and this would be imposed upon the Israelis.
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: That doesn't seem terrific from my vantage point either.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: If you read Israeli journalist, I mean, Seigal's daily updates, it's known in Israel, he put it rather starkly this morning.
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I quote, as one very senior official put it to me this morning, the deal is,
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: Cara and quote.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: Bottom line, the president says the deal is going to be a good one.
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: Initial reports from the region suggest otherwise.
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: The truth will reveal itself over the coming hours and days I suppose.
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: But for now we're all just trying to clear up to keep up, rather.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: So.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: We clearly have a lot to unpack this morning.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I have a great team of FDD scholars to do that in this sit-rep format.
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: We've gotten the Admaliki, he's in Ronnie Born Iran, expert who served for years as associate director for the office of global targeting at, oh fact, the office of foreign assets control, where he managed financial investigations across more than 35 sanctions programs.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: Today's a senior advisor here at FDD and he's one of the sharpest minds around watching Iran regime behavior and the economy of the Islamic Republic.
• 3:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: Alongside him, we're going to have Bradley Bowman, Brad served his national security visor to members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committee.
• 3:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: He was an active duty U.S. Army officer, a Black Hawk pilot and assistant professor at West Point.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: Today, he is director of FTD Center on military and political power, CMPP, and he is author of the forthcoming book, Axis of Aggressors.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: We're going to have him back soon to discuss that book on this program.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: And finally, we have Ahmed Charalee, a Jordanian-born analyst of Middle East Affairs.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's a rising star here at FDD covering Lebanon, Syria, and more Arab-expeeker watching the news closely.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's the team and their assignment is to tangle all of this for us and to either reinforce the sense of
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: depending doom or to help us see silver lines.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know which way things are gonna go because we haven't even had time to digest all of this and prep this morning.
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: So here we go without a net.
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: Let's bring the crew onto the show.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: All right, welcome to the morning brief.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: Mead Malaki, Brad Bowman, Ahmed Shirawi, good to have you.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, I'm a little fired up this morning.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, I'm a little dizzy with the news.
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: So let's start with Brad Bowman.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: I want you to just get us up the speed.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: We tracked this a little bit of this on Wednesday.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: The uptick intentions, the tit for tat with the United States and the Islamic Republic.
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: He looked like we were on a collision course, and now we're not.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: So tell us what's happened over the last 48 hours.
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, John.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a real pleasure to join you in my distinguished colleagues.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, for those who have been not falling the news blow by blow that the latest exchange of fire began when Iran launched a salvo ballistic missiles at Israel after Israel conducted more operations against Hezbollah.
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Clearly, the Islamic Provaran wants to maintain its varsity proxy and Lebanon and does not like Israeli efforts to destroy Hezbollah, Israel responded and said they launched a bunch of ballistic missiles.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Israel is responded with air strikes and Iran targeting air defenses, missile launchers, and a petrochemical complex.
• 5:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: around then launched a second wave of missile attacks against Israel that day.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: At American age 64, helicopter was downed, it came in contact with the drone, something I take personally, the former Blackhawk pilot, and extraordinarily the crew was rescued by an unmanned surface vessel, one of the first times we've ever seen that.
• 5:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Iran then responded at the U.S. responded with what it called self defense strikes conducting a very effective strikes on a variety of things including air defenses ground control stations and surveillance radar sites including some that allow Iran to project power into the straight of our moves.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that was positive.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Iran then responded with attacks on our bases in Jordan by raining Kuwait with some reported damage in those locations and then and then around around we go on the straight of her moves with Iran saying that it is now closed.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sent Comps saying no no it's open.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: that we've had hundreds of fish transiting in the last two months, and this is all as happening as Donald Trump is trying to use a military force and a threat of military force to exert pressure over the bargaining table, and he was threatening to conduct more strikes, including taking Carg Island, which I and my colleagues at the CNPP have argued since April would be a huge mistake.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: and he did not conduct those strikes as many of you may have seen because he had people telling him that a deal was eminent yet we've heard that before and the details have you said about the possible deal look frankly quite disastrous.
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: Let's talk about some of those details.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: Let's talk about this notion that we would somehow move our assets out of the Middle East.
• 6:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: Let's talk about that.
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: But also while we're talking about this, just this idea of issuing these threats.
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: preparing for strikes, whether you agree with those targets or not, and then standing down, I want to talk about this question of deterrence and whether we've wielded the leverage that we have properly here, or did we relinquish too soon in your perspective, break that down for us just a little bit.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, John.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's always dangerous to ask me about deterrence, because I love the topic, but I'll try to keep it brief, because I know we've got certain colleagues here.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Deternance is not what you and I think it's the perception of our adversaries of two things, our military capabilities and our political will.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I believe Donald Trump's willingness to put his money where he is the mouth of American presence have been for decades on Iran increased our deterrence by demonstrating our adversaries around the world that America has muscles and that we're willing to throw punches.
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: But if you look at the 2024 Red Sea combat against the Houthis, the Teraproxy and Yemen, and the latest incident, I think I worry that our adversaries, including the people's Republic of China, will look and say, hey, the Americans make a good show of it, for about six to eight weeks, and then they lose the political will, and they don't have sufficient military capacity.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: So in a Taiwan scenario, all we would have to do is start it and wait for the Americans to get tired, distracted, exhausted, or to begin to run out of munitions.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I worry that the deterrence picture is more mixed than many real eyes.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And even had President Trump saying the last 24 hours, hey, I'd love to do X or Y, but I'm not sure the American public has the stomach for it.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And one reason maybe that to the degree that's true is that from the beginning there was a failure I think to explain to the American people, including in the early days from the oval office about why we should care, a failure to make the case sufficiently to Congress, and a failure to bring our allies along.
• 8:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so this is where you start to pay the price for those failures.
• 8:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: These longer Poveran is the leading threat to U.S. interest in the Middle East.
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a member of this axis of aggressors.
• 8:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: degrading their military capabilities and ultimately seeing a government in Iran that represents the interests of the Iranian people rather than being the world's leading statesponsor terrorism is a good thing, but degrading military capability and achieving region regime change as America has learned yet again are two different things.
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, I got one more question for you here.
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I want to talk about what leads us to this moment where we could be making a deal that, well, maybe sub-optimal, I'm being understated of course right now, but I also don't know.
• 9:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, I mean, I just want to be cleared everybody listening.
• 9:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: What we're watching right now is reports that are coming out that may not be verifiable and may actually be false.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: But I want to ask the idea that we decided to stand down right as we were looking to respond to clear aggression against the United States right the downing of a chopper in what should have been a ceasefire That would be you know a red line and that actually was something that Donald Trump said that he had no choice but to respond
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: what is in your view, I mean, what's driving this?
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: Is it that lack of stomach that the president talked about that, you know, we've overlearned our lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan and that we don't want to get involved in painful, you know, protracted conflicts in the region.
• 10:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: We heard a lot about new niches that we may be kind of at a when not running on fumes clearly, but maybe we've reached a critical point we don't want to draw down any further is that what's keeping the president from going in and delivering that knockout blow or do you think there's something else going on here because I got to say it doesn't all add up when you think about the fact that the regime seems to be getting a lot out of this and we may not be getting much at all other than the opening of the straight of foremost.
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: John, thanks for the question.
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I suspect in number of things are happening very quickly.
• 10:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would say I think the president is learning that Iran has not been as well as something that some of us warned about from the beginning and that these long-produe Iran is not just another government.
• 11:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a terrorist entity, entity, mass-grading is a nation state and that you have
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: tens of thousands of Islamic revolutionary guard members with a sick ideology in weapons who are willing to kill kill to retain the grip on power.
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure he's officially realized that.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I suspect that he's hearing from the Pentagon that America's arsenal of Tomahawk.
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Tom Hawks, Jazms, these are air-locked munitions, precision strike missiles, ground-locked munitions, SM-3s, SM-6, FADs, and Patriot.
• 11:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Interceptors are dangerously low.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I suspect he's hearing that, and in many cases, he's going to take three or four or more years to replenish them.
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I suspect he's hearing lots of concerns about that, particularly from Indo-Pacific Command, as we're eyeing potentially the worst war of the 21st century in the next two to three years.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: If we don't deter Chinese aggression, I think that's part of it.
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think hopefully he's also hearing from his military advisors that, yes, we could take Carke Island, but it's completely unnecessary and it would quickly go from an asset to a liability as our troops get pummeled there and we take casualties once we successfully took it.
• 12:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think those are probably two or three factors that are a play and not all of those are bad because those are all truthful things I just laid out.
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and so yeah, we could actually be looking at some constraints that are driving the president's calculus and it ain't gets fair to address all of those, but I mean, I also wonder about the terms of this deal.
• 12:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, Brad, thank you for that me odd.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: I want to turn to you.
• 12:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, I want to just maybe let's first talk about meronews, which is apparently the the key source of what we're reading with the details that are being, you know, kind of thrown around right now in social media.
• 12:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: Let's talk about the credibility of this source.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, but I guess more broadly, whether these are all, I mean, is this just messaging toward the Iranian people?
• 12:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: Is this an attempt to try to beat their chest and really exhibit some bravado ahead of what could be a, a deal that is, in fact, less.
• 12:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: beneficial to the Islamic Republic, how do you read things right now?
• 13:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sure, thanks for having me on, John.
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's very clear when I read this murder news and and for your listeners, my news is a news outlet that is affiliated with Iran's intelligence services and security intelligence services.
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it really, the detects of the article and manuals is very clearly sending a signal to their base supporters, to the ideological supporters in Iran, which arguably, you know, some are building five to ten to 15 percent of the population that we make committed to the Islamic Republic.
• 13:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it really goes back to the argument that we've been making that the fact that we don't have
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: an agreement with Islamic Republic yet given all the pressure they're under and the degradation to their military capabilities, the political economic situation is being very dire in Iran.
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: The reason we don't have a deal is because they're having a really hard time.
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, really accepting something that wouldn't really be a threat to the remaining very, very little remaining legitimacy that they have domestically with their base supporters.
• 14:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: So when I read this mirror news article, it's a clear that they're,
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: under enough pressure that want to agree to something, but it's also very critical to them to message it in a way to that 5 to 10 to 15 percent that we're getting your win here.
• 14:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: We were under a lot of pressure economically, we've lost layers and layers of our top leadership.
• 14:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have your signing away or nuclear program that cost us close to $1 trillion.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: but we're getting something out of it.
• 14:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're still coming out of this as a winner.
• 14:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's why I really don't really view this article and this 14 points that you're laying out as any request to the reality of what really President Trump would agree to.
• 15:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: However, if any part of this, you know, what Iranian regime is really good at doing is taking some 5% of facts and then attaching 95% of propaganda and disinformation and presenting it in a very convincing manner.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: The whole argument that U.S. government created ISIS.
• 15:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, if there was no fact there, but there was something with an Iraqi population that they'd really leverage to spread that rumor, right?
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's the same story here, but any part of this 14 points that are real makes this deal very concerning and it really gives a way of leverage upfront.
• 15:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: I would think so.
• 15:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: Let's talk about the financial element of this for a minute because I do think, you know, that's obviously, that's your area of expertise.
• 15:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: If there is, for example, the release of some hard cash for the regime, right, some sort of payoff for the opening of the straight-of-formus, if there is a reconstruction fund,
• 16:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: that is significant, that gives the Islamic Republic fungible cash, because we know that if you give money for humanitarian or reconstruction, you know where this goes, right?
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: It goes right into the pockets of the IRGC.
• 16:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: There is really like that there is no way to put a fence around that.
• 16:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, I mean, how concerned are you about some of these economic
• 16:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: I've seen this movie and I got to say I didn't like it the first time I didn't like it, you know, I mean, these are the things to keep me up at night, right?
• 16:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: So how do you break all that down?
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, there are things that I'm seeing here that sound really scary, but I'm not really afraid of or not really worried about them because I know how things end up actually playing out.
• 16:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: I go back to the JCPOA time.
• 16:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: All these financial commitments or really engagements by the administration back then to really help Iran benefit from the JCPOA, but the end of a day, everything comes down to the private sector.
• 17:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: and whether the private sector would be willing to take the risk of facilitating whatever the politicians decide to do, and that's actually that's going to be wrong's problem.
• 17:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now on the reconstruction support or fund, you know, I remember when Iran was trying to
• 17:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I remember how things even even a small amount of trying to take here and there to even pay their own debt to the U.N.
• 17:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: They run into issues, they can't touch money, they can move funds, their legislatures, the mandatory sanctions that would tie the executive branch hands in kind of providing the type of financial incentives to Iran.
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now putting that aside, the real things that we need to dive into very quickly.
• 17:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm not too worried about the construction fund.
• 17:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: But what I'm really looking at here is two things, one, giving you run access to his frozen funds in Oman, Qatar, and in Iraq.
• 18:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: There are two ways that that could be done.
• 18:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Going back to giving you run access to these funds to use them for, let's say, humanitarian trade.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: That was always the case during the Biden administration, they had access post-October seven that access was shut down, the U.S. government is not going to take any, there
• 18:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: to give Iran access to those funds for humanitarian trade.
• 18:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: So let's put that aside.
• 18:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's the decision that Trump administration can make.
• 18:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: It wouldn't make consequential for the regime.
• 18:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Money is fungible.
• 18:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: They can benefit from it.
• 18:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the US government can shut that down in any minute if there are any violations.
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now the second scenario here is if you run get access to that cash in a way that the funds are transferred to Iranian accounts, that would require the president,
• 18:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: the White House and the Treasury Department to actually provide sanctions relief to Iran, meaning the second sanctions secondary sanctions waivers, potentially removing some folks some of the banks from Iranian banks from the sanctions list, that would be a heavy lift.
• 19:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: But, and I don't think it's going to happen overnight.
• 19:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think it's going to happen in 60 days for Iran to get access to cash.
• 19:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, the last item here, which worries me, is this thing that I'm hearing about the 60-day waiver or licenses for Iran to sell oil.
• 19:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is very problematic because what that does, it's not gonna bring new buyers for Iran's oil, but it's going to really give a lot of comfort to the Chinese to increase the volume of oil that are buying from Iran, right?
• 19:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I would be quick revenue for Iran,
• 19:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And also what it does is really tight treasure departments hands to go back and enforce sanctions because when you issue and you and I have the same background John, and you remember back in the day, when you go through information to enforce sanctions, you can really put a, you can't we understand which transactions connected to which shipment, whether the satisfaction went through when the things were authorized or not, it'll take me.
• 20:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
• 20:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's it.
• 20:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
• 20:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's open and then all of a sudden it
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it takes months to go back to actually understand which shipments are now not tied to the 60-day authorization and they could be sanctionable.
• 20:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it'll really take a lot of sanctions leverage away from the U.S. Treasury Department and the State Department.
• 20:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if there is a 60-day observation,
• 20:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: close eye on that.
• 20:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: All right, thank you, mead.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm, I want to turn to you.
• 20:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: There are regional implications potentially here.
• 20:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: These railies, obviously, they made their statement over the weekend saying, yeah, what happens in Lebanon, on stays in Lebanon, and we get to do whatever we want.
• 20:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: That was the Israeli message to the Islamic Republic.
• 20:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: It now looks like possible.
• 20:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: possibly, the Islamic Republic has negotiated the terms of a deal that might give them some control over Lebanon that would be blessed by the United States.
• 20:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: What does that mean in your view?
• 21:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: First of all, thank you for having me and it's a pleasure to be here with my colleagues.
• 21:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: What this means, I mean, according to the statement,
• 21:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: This would be the second time where the Iranians would call for the withdrawal of the idea from Southern Lebanon and to seek for Israel to seize all operations in Lebanon.
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: What this means is if this is correct and the U.S. forces Israel to withdraw from Southern Lebanon, then I mean
• 21:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: This ceasefire agreement that the U.S. and Israel and Lebanon agreed on last week to pull out Hezbollah from South of the Ritani into the North of Ritani has already failed.
• 21:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hezbollah already rejected that ceasefire and is attacking the idea in southern Lebanon as well as northern Israel.
• 21:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if the Israel is forced to withdraw, then we will see our return.
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: to the pre-October 7 scenario in which Hasballa becomes entrenched in southern Lebanon with already seen that the Lebanese government is hesitant or reluctant or lacks the will of enforcing whether it's security council resolution 1701 or whether it's the ceasefire agreement from November 2024 in terms of disarmament Hasballa.
• 22:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: So Hasballa itself will be empowered by such a deal and given that if
• 22:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: As Bala really looks for daylight between Israel and the United States, and this is a great gift for them, especially if the U.S. forces Israel to seize operations, forces Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon, that were really empowered the group, and it will also empower the group against the Lebanese armed forces or railroad if they ever try to enforce the disarmament plan.
• 22:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, all in all, bottom 9, this would be a disaster for any plan to disarm as well and the long-term and prevented from rearming or regenerating.
• 22:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, I got to hope that this is not part of the deal.
• 22:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think tying the Israelis hands in the battle against the Islamic Republic's proxies seems like
• 23:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, just giving up leverage.
• 23:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I think the Israelis actually afford us some leverage here.
• 23:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: Uh, you can still weaken the Islamic Republic even in the case of a bad deal by reducing its regional threat network.
• 23:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, tell me, what, what are you hearing from other Arab states this morning as news is emerging about this?
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I know that there's kind of a mixed bag, right?
• 23:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like the Omanis and the Qataris are probably pretty happy about what has been at least notionally released.
• 23:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: The Emirates probably not happy, but then there's probably a whole bunch of fence sitting Arab states, I'm thinking about maybe the Saudis and the Georgianians and others that maybe you're not openly aggressive towards the Islamic Republic, but might be pretty grumpy to hear about pork terms.
• 23:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: What are you seeing today?
• 23:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, let me start with some of the proxy aligned media and how they're framing this.
• 23:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you look at some of the media, I mean, organizations within the Hasball ecosystem, they're framing this as an American surrender.
• 24:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they're focusing on two provisions within this leaked agreement, whatever their onions released.
• 24:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: When it comes to the US with drawing from areas close to, or from bases next to Iran, as well as the Lebanese fire.
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they're celebrating that as an achievement.
• 24:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: But for the other Arab states, they're cautious in terms of the reporting.
• 24:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: They haven't criticized or supported this deal.
• 24:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: But my assumption would be, and I think you're correct when it comes to countries that are more hedging that hedge towards the Islamic Republic.
• 24:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: they're taking a more neutral stance.
• 24:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I did see a report that the Qataris have, I mean there's a reason why the Qataris have not been targeted like Bahrain and Kuwait and the supposed ceasefire period because they played a role in mediating between Iran and the U.S. and there was actually some sort of agreement.
• 24:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: between Iran and Qatar to seize attacks on Qatar and exchange for that mediating road.
• 24:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think it's too early to tell from the Arab media perspective on how they feel about this.
• 25:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mainly because we're only seeing one source reporting on these agreements, although the Gulf states will be the
• 25:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it would be, I mean, it would be interesting to look at how the Gulf States would react, especially when it comes to the U.S. role and the U.S. presence in their countries and how this is affected by the war.
• 25:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, all in all, for countries like the UAE, the idea that would empower the Islamic Republic and the future is a bad deal for them.
• 25:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, these countries will have to deal with what they're on in the future.
• 25:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: They've already seen what the result of hedging is during the war.
• 25:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this will be a significant change between these countries and Iran.
• 25:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the UAE is in one category, but countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that are more hedging and more neutral, that would be these two countries would be wants to watch.
• 26:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think that's all right.
• 26:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay guys, we're going to start to wrap up here.
• 26:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: What I just want to note for everybody at home is there are reports that there will be some kind of a signing ceremony in Geneva.
• 26:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: The US has not released an official text at least not that we saw it leading up to us going live this morning.
• 26:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: The stuff that the Iranians were putting out could be pure propaganda.
• 26:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: It could be partially true.
• 26:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think is me.
• 26:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'd noted.
• 26:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: of what happens here.
• 26:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: If we have any kind of a deal, it would be one that likely enshrines the power of the Islamic Republic for a time.
• 26:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: It will likely start to raise some doubts unless it is a truly excellent deal that shuts down the threat of the Islamic Republic.
• 26:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: You're going to start to see some allies get a little itchy.
• 26:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: And of course, there will be questions here as we debate some of this at home.
• 26:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: But for the meantime, I want to thank
• 26:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: for joining us on this sit-wrap edition of the FPD Morningbury.
• 27:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
• 27:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: All right folks, that's it for your Friday episode.
• 27:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: This week has been another long, long year.
• 27:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: Here's the part where I quickly convey to you three important things.
• 27:16
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• 27:19
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• 27:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: Hey in there, folks.
• 27:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: Go enjoy the weekend.
• 27:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: We'll be watching the news closely and we'll break it all down for you on Monday.
• 27:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: Until then, thank you for joining this special Sid Repedition of the FD Morning Brief.
• 27:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: for FDD.