Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / Not at all clear that U.S. will get a deal w Iran_ Negotiations in Islamabad continue this week

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Not at all clear that U.S. will get a deal w Iran_ Negotiations in Islamabad continue this week · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: With just three days until the temporary cease fire between
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: the US and Iran is set to expire, tensions remain
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: high over the Strait of Hormuz. Last night, Iran's Revolutionary
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: guards that the strait will stay closed until the US
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: blockade is lifted. It comes after Iran reportedly fired on
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: two vessels from India attempting to pass through the strait
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: on Saturday. For now, there's no date set for a
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: new meeting between US and Iranian negotiators, but yesterday Trump
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: said talks were ongoing.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: We have very good conversations going on.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: It's working out very well.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: They got a little cute, as they have.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Been doing for forty seven years.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: They wanted to close up this straight again, you know,
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: as they've been doing for years.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: And they can't blackmail US. For its part, an Iranian
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: official told the Associated Press that Iran is not ready
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: for new talks, citing the US refusal to abandon maximum demands. Meanwhile,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: as the war with Ron enters it's eighth week, the
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal reports that the US military is preparing
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: in coming days to board Iranian linked oil tankers and
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: seize commercial ships in international waters. Joining US now John Finer,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: former Principal Deputy National Security Advisor and the Biden administration.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: He's also the co host of the Long Game podcast. John,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us this morning. I have a question
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: that I've sort of had in the back of my mind,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: and I feel like I have probably should have called
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: an expert earlier to resolve this. But when the President
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: is making these claims that the Iranian Navy, the Iranian
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: military has been completely decimated and destroyed, and then you
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: see reports that fleets, these mosquito fleets in the waters
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and these other Iranian National Guard forces are still taking action,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: completing missions and obviously being effective to some extent, how
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: do you differentiate those two things? And I mean, based
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: on the public reporting, how much capacity does Iran have
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: to continue to wage this war? It seems like they've
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: got much more manpower here than the President and the
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: rest of the administration originally anticipated.
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: It's a really good question, and I think there's two
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: things going on here. One is that the Iranians have
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: learned something very important and very damaging to the United
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: States and to the rest of the world, which is
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: that they can accomplish quite a lot strategically militarily with
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: not that much military capability. So let's just take at
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: face value the president's claim that the Iranian military has
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: been badly damaged by this war, which I think they have,
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: including their navy. Iran has shown that with a few
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: drones a day fired into the Strait of Horror moves,
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: and maybe with a few small naval vessels, not giant
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: naval ships with gray hulls the way you think of
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: the US Navy, but little fast boats, almost like the
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: boats that drug dealers use in the Caribbean, kind of
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: buzzing around bigger ships. They can bring significant amounts of
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: the global economy commercial traffic that flows through this narrow
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: waterway to a halt, and it doesn't take all that much.
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: The second thing going on, unfortunately, is that the credibility
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: of the statements coming out of this administration, out of
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: the White House on accomplishments in the war, on how
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: the talks or proceeding cannot be taken at face value.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: The President was announcing on Friday that peace in our
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: time had arrived and that we were on a cusp
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: of a deal, and within hours that had clearly been
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: revealed not to be true.
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: One of the things that's behind the credibility crisis might
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: be what our friends at the Wall Street Journal, Josh
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: Doossey and Andy Lyinsky wrote that came out last night.
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: For those of you who are looking for inside the
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: room conversations and stories, this is a really good one
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: to look into. They write, he is veering between belligerent
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: and conciliatory approaches and grappling behind the scenes, but just
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: how badly things could go wrong. At the same time,
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: the President sometimes loses focus, spending time on the details
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: of his plans for the White House ballroom, on midterm fundraisers,
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: and telling advisors he wants to shift to other topics.
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: John Finder the board approach that Trump seems to have
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: when he talks about this. Right even yesterday when he
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: was doing a signing, reporters started asking and he was like, out,
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: he didn't want to talk about Ron. And when you
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: look at the length of time that there has actually
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: been negotiating, it pales in comparison to the JCPOA of
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: the Obama administration. I had our team put together a
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: kind of stopmash of the length of negotiations coming from
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: folks who were in these rooms to compare to the
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: Trump administration, let's pay that.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Today, after two years of negotiations, the United States, together
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: were international partners, has achieved something that decades of animosity
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: has not, a comprehensive, long term deal with a run.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: This moment has been a long time coming, and we
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: have worked very hard to get here.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: This was an extraordinary twenty seven days for me in Vienna.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: Much of my team was there for much longer than that.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: We have been at this for over two years.
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  Speaker 5: At the very end, they basically moved to Vianna. When
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: you look at how the Trump folks are approaching this,
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: the length of time that they seem willing to give
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: to hammering got a deal that has beleaguered administration after the administration.
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: What rings true to you.
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: Well, one thing that rings very obvious to me is
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: that there was no chance of reaching a deal in
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: one day of talks in Pakistan, and that Vice President
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: Vance showed up for back more than now a week ago.
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: And if they are serious about getting this resolved diplomatically,
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: getting this resolved through an agreement, they're going to have
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: to put in the time. They're going to have to
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: bring experts into the conversation who actually understand these issues.
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: Who understand what is at stake when it comes to
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: Iran's nuclear program, what they should be able to keep,
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: and what they should be able to give away, what
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: we have to give on our side of the equation,
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: because after all, this is a negotiation, and it's quite clear,
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: given what Iran has suffered on the battlefield, that they're
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: not likely to make more concessions. They have survived, their
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: regime has survived, and they're not likely to make more
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: concessions unless the United States put something on the table
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: in terms of sanctions relief for some other incentives. These
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: are complicated talks, and as you just pointed out, and
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: as those clips showed, I was in Vienna with Secretary
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: Carry and Wendy Sherman, who you just showed talking about
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: those talks. Secretary Carry spent nineteen consecutive days in Vienna
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: to finish the very last stage of the Iran nuclear agreement,
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: the longest any Secretary of State had ever been out
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: of the country in any one country, I think literally
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: in the history of the United States, and that was
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: just to finish the end stage. This takes time, makes expertise,
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: it takes working the details, and it's not at all
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: clear that they have the desire, the bandwidth UH to
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: put in the time necessary to get this done