Have the U.S. and Iran FINALLY Reached a Deal? Iran Expert Explains

Unfortunately, every time we speak, things are worse in the world.

This is a test for Donald Trump.Any deal, MOU, other deal Iran signs with the United States has to be contingent on the U .S.being able to control Israel.Now we have a situation which is self -defeating for Trump administration, because they need fresh ideas.

It must frustrate you to see the staggering levels of ignorance and incompetence when it comes to America's dealing with Iran.

It's not only existing ignorance, it's also lack of curiosity.We know about the history of Mushtafa Khamenei, but we really don't know what the impact of this war, losing his father, mother, wife, daughter in this attack, what has it done to him psychologically?

The Emiratis put a half a billion dollars into Donald Trump's cryptocurrency family business, and in the end, it was still Netanyahu who decided all of this.

The old model is broken.We go back to war, the damage to the Gulf could be much, much larger than what we have seen.

Fali, I have an idea as how the war ends.I have a perfect plan.Donald Trump continues to say the U .S.is on the verge of striking a deal with Iran.But nearly two months into the so -called ceasefire, no deal has been signed yet, and Iran's foreign minister says no tangible progress has been made so far.

My next guest will undoubtedly give you a better sense of how close the U .S.is to striking a deal with Iran and how the conflict will weigh on the Middle East for years to come.Vali Nasr is a former adviser to the Obama administration and a professor of Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins.He is back on May the Unfiltered.Thank you for coming back, Vali.

Good to be here.

Thank you.Unfortunately, every time we speak, things are worse in the world.But who better to talk to than yourself about what is going on with Iran?By the time this airs, by the time we finish talking, who knows what will have happened?Every hour, especially with the Trump administration, there's all sorts of leaks and announcements.We have been told we're on the verge of a deal.

Every other day, last weekend, I remember I was at a party, and someone rang me and said, breaking news, you better get to us.It's going to be a deal -breaker.And there wasn't one, of course.Is it fair to say that right now The bigger opposition to a deal is coming out of Iran and Tehran than out of the Washington, D .C., and the United States?

No, I don't think so.I think the Iranians arrived at a formula that they thought that the Trump administration would go along, which is, let's finish the war and lift the economic blockades on the Strait of Hormuz and on Iranian economy, and then we'll negotiate the bigger things, like the nuclear deal and the final status of the Strait of Hormuz.Trump came very close to the edge to signing it.That's probably when you were— And all the Republicans went crazy?The Republicans went crazy, and also the Democrats went crazy.And he knows that there's no victory coming out of this deal, so he backed away and tried to renegotiate.

And that's where we are.In other words, he said, well, I'm not going to unfreeze what I promised, your funds.No, no, I want the final status of the trade and what you're going to do with the nuclear material.All rolled in.All rolled in.So that unraveled it.

So you wrote an FT piece, and the headline was, White Iran Fears a Deal Today.Why Iran fears a deal today means more war tomorrow.And Europe, if there is a division in Tehran, it is over the wisdom of trusting the U .S.government.And that's why I asked a question about, is it Iranian hesitancy now that whatever they sign is worthless, given they've seen, like those of us who live in the United States, the rest of the world, Iranians included, are seeing how erratic, impulsive, unreliable, dishonest, all over the place Donald J. Trump is?

Absolutely.I mean, the biggest deficit here is actually trust.They don't trust that...And can you blame them?No, no, because he's the one who came out of the 2018 deal.He bombed them twice in the middle of negotiations.

He's gone back on his word.He puts material online periodically that are insulting, and also closed the space in Iran for making any kind ofa compromise.But I think the Iranians may find that a larger deal is improbable, is extremely difficult.But a memorandum of understanding to end the war probably is something that they're willing to sign on to.So I think their approach is that they are willing to test the waters with diplomacy, but they will not sign anything in a larger deal unless they're absolutely sure where they're putting their foot down.

There are three words that no one in America said prior to February 28th, and now we say them every day on every new show, in every discussion.Strait of Hormuz.Suddenly everyone in America is like, let's look it up.What is the Strait of Hormuz?Iran has weaponized the Strait of Hormuz in a way that many informed observers assumed they would.And Donald Trump says, we had no idea they would do this.

You write in a recent piece for Foreign Affairs that you co -authored with Nargis Bajoghli, the Strait of Hormuz is now understood by all parties.as an Iranian asset rather than an open sea lane backed by an American guarantee.Unpack that for us.So, you know, the idea that they're going to close the Strait of Hormuz was always there.

In fact, in 1985, Ronald Reagan bombed Iran's IRGC Navy to prevent them from doing that.But the understanding was that the Iranians could basically bring ships into the Strait and physically prevent anybody passing through.They're not doing that.They're basically doing it with drones and missiles and making it making the insurers basically prevent the ships from going through.They all of a sudden realize that they can do this very easily.And it has a massive impact on the entire gulf economy and the global economy.

And now they also couple this with the idea that they don't believe the United States is ever going to lift sanctions on them.And if it's never going to lift sanctions on them, then they say that, well, the strait can be probably some way in which we could use as leverage, or we could basically earn our own leverage.health.But I think at another level, controlling this trade basically means what they're saying is American containment of Iran is over.We destroyed 16 bases.We've taken over this trade.

The U .S.is out of the Gulf.That's what they're saying.That's the message that they're sending to the Arab countries, that there's not going to be peace in this region if the U .S.

bases come back.And this is now really an Iranian lake.That's what they basically are conveying.This is something the Shah used to believe, but they now have got to the point where the Shah was, and they want to assert this.

Let me ask you a very obvious question.Maybe the answer is obvious, but I want to hear you just answer it.If there was no strain of Hormuz, would this war be over?Is that their ultimate leverage, their ultimate weapon, or is there other things?

Well, the other very important leverage they have is that the American bombing hasn't worked.In other words, the U .S.pounded them, Israel pounded them, they didn't collapse, and then they took the fight to the United States.

There was no regime change, as Donald Trump thought there would be?

No, but also, even if there wasn't this trade of hormones, their ability to hit oil installations in UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, et cetera, still would have put sort of a pincer on global energy markets.

On the Gulf states, I've been fascinated by what happens with the Gulf states long -term or even medium -term.Publicly, some of them are making a lot of hawkish noises, anti -Iranian noises, chief among them the United Arab Emirates, which says we must deal with the regime in Iran, even though they have had a lot of damage done to their own economies, their own infrastructure.You write in your Foreign Affairs piece, Iranian attacks created a crisis of confidence among the Gulf states.The breach of trust between Gulf capitals and Washington will outlast the immediate conflict.I 100 % agree with that.I've been thinking for a long time, if I'm a Gulf ruler, forget the UA, if I'm in Kuwait or Bahrain or Qatar, am I looking

towards the Chinese and the Russians?Am I looking to recalibrate my security relationships?Because I spend all my money and all my time and all my diplomacy on the United States and their security umbrella.And in the end, the U .S.chose Israel over us, right?

The Qataris gave them a plane, $400 million plane.The Saudis gave Jared Kushner $2 billion.The Emiratis put a half a billion dollars into Donald Trump's cryptocurrency family business.And in the end, it was still Netanyahu who decided all of this.

Well, not only that, that if Netanyahu also decides to hit you like he did with Qatar, the U .S.definitely is not going to defend you in that case.I think the entire model that the Gulf countries operated in, which at some level was a suspension of disbelief like Hollywood.In other words, we can have this great economy with airlines, expatriates, all of these businesses, AI, et cetera, as if we're not neighbors of Iran and as if war might not happen.illusion that this has been shattered.

And shattered forever, right?Because some people say to me, well, it'll be fine.They'll just rebuild everything and go back to normal eventually.And my feeling is, I don't think you can undo what people have seen and experienced.Now, if you're a Western company, do you go straight back into Dubai or Abu Dhabi knowing that while this government is in place in Iran, at any time they could hit the UAE again?

No, I don't think so.I think some things can go back.They can pump a lot of oil.They can do certain things.But there are certain businesses.But that image.

Well, there's a lot of businesses that require that image of security.Once that is shattered, you know, that trust is shattered, it takes a long time to rebuild it.But also the old model is broken.And until that is fixed, nothing will be de -risked in the Gulf.The old model was there's this bad Iran over there.America will provide the shield.

We'll stand behind it.Maybe we'll throw Iran some crumbs here and there, and they will play along.They didn't expect that Israel would come in and upend the whole thing with bringing war to the region.But once war came, the United States proved unwilling and unwilling.to defend them and even defend its own bases.So as angry as they might be at Iran for targeting them, they still have to answer the question, how do we bring back security?

How do we de -risk the Gulf?And bringing the United States and Israel into a confrontational posture means war forever in the Gulf.So if they want to have some other model, it might include Iran.They have to deal with Iran, even though it's an enemy.And then they would have to go to somebody like China, which actually has good relations across the Gulf, and whose motivations are not beating Iran, or destroying Iran, or caging Iran.But its motivation is, we want everybody north and south of the Gulf to get along, because we want to do business on both sides.

And everybody trusts us.We have relationships with everybody.

They're the ones who brought Iran and Saudi back to the table a couple years ago.

So the future might look like that Iran -Saudi deal deepened and expanded.And it's not total security, but it's a different approach to how do we create regional security in which you could go back to greater normalcy.

There's a line in your foreign affairs piece.You say the United States brought war to their cities, referring to the Gulf countries, and vital infrastructure, and failed to protect them.It's even worse than that since you wrote that piece.I don't know if you saw Donald Trump's comments the other day after Kuwait was hit by Iran.And instead of condemning Iran, which you would expect a right -wing hawkish American president to do, Trump says, well, you know, we hit them pretty hard, so they hit back.He was almost justifying the Iranian attack on Kuwait.

If I was a Kuwaiti, I'd be pretty furious.

Yes.I mean, he's done this before, too, when Iranians retaliated for the killing of Iranians.onit has sort of internalized the idea that the Gulf countries are going to be collateral damage to whatever steps he takes.So the Gulf countries are not.caught between the United States and Iran, which are in a very tenuous ceasefire.

And if this ceasefire breaks down, the war will be fought on their heads.And that's why a group of them called President Trump about two weeks ago asking him not to resume war with Iran, regardless of what they think about Iran, because the US is perfectly OK with this happening, and at the same time is not able to defend them.And so they are very worried that in the next phase of the war, if we go back to war, the damage to the Gulf could be much, much larger than what we have seen.

Just going back to the regime change point that we touched on earlier, the failure to really change the regime, swapping one Khamenei for another, you write in your foreign affairs piece with Nargis Bajoghli, the manner in which the elder Khamenei was killed at his home rather than in a bunker mattered enormously.The new leaders immediately framed his death as martyrdom, and that framing worked.Rather than demoralizing the system, Khamenei's assassination gave the new generation of leaders direction and purpose.What is that direction and purpose?Do we know anything more about Mujtaba Khamenei and the people around him, running the IRGC, running the country.Do we know anything more since the last time you and I spoke on the show?

Well, we know about the history of Mushtafa Khamenei, but we really don't know what the impact of this war, losing his father, mother, wife, daughter in this attack, what has he done to him psychologically?How does he see himself in this new role, leading a country?through war and out of war.We still have to see much more from him.But what we see right now is that once the moment the attack came, and the fact that the former leader basically decided to be sitting in his home rather than in a bunker, gave much more sort of a sense of purpose to defend the country and push back against the attack that came against Iran.So, it enabled the whole system to mobilize extremely quickly around the mission.

And the mission was survival, but also taking the fight to the Israelis and to the Americans.And the manner in which the older Khamenei died, particularly in terms of Shia history, et cetera, it sort of evoked the myth of of Karbala and Ashura, as well as Mushtaba's survival, the way he survived, that this is basically an epic battle.

Shia Islam is very focused on martyrdom and the martyrdom of the grandson of the Prophet at Karbala on the day of Ashura.Actually, that's coming up very soon.In a few weeks, this will be the Iran war will be happening during this month of Muharram on Ashura, which are days, very holy religious days, in which Shia Muslims in Iran will be remembering martyrdom and sacrifice.

Actually, that's why they've scheduled his official funeral.for close to that date.from many observers in Iran, Narges and I, that this was actually very, very important.

So that U .S.-Israeli airstrike on day one backfired strategically for the United States?

that the series of events they thought would happen did not happen.And then you ended up basically confronting a regime which they didn't know was ready for another war.The difference between the June war and the February war, in June, Iran was surprised and barely managed to survive and defend itself.This time, they went to war.They knew they were going to war, and they went to war with the aim of winning.And so they had planning.

They were ready.And all they needed, basically, was that sort of trigger and a sense of purpose.So what you saw, the reason Iran survived in a sort of extremely surprising way in this war, owes to two things we found.One is how surprisingly and how rapidly they rebooted and changed everything between June and February in a way that you didn't expect.a theocratic, sclerotic— To move that fast.To move that fast.

And secondly, how effectively they implemented all the plans that they had devised in those six to eight months as soon as the war happened.And as a result, the wars make states, make people, make leaders.And this new generation, having gone through this 40 -year experience, now is coming out at the other side of it with this legacy behind it.

Well, we know what the Iran -Iraq war did to Iran and its relations with its neighbors, and that was eight years.You mentioned they went into this war with the goal of winning.For someone watching at home, especially here in the United States, what does winning—we've not heard an answer from Donald Trump and Marco Rubio and appropriate answers to what victory looks like in this war.They keep moving the goalposts.What does winning look like to Mojtaba Khamenei, to the IRGC?

Well, winning here means an underdog country that everybody thought was weak, was on its last legs.It's been under sanctions for 47 years, maximum pressure sanctions in Syria.is able to frustrate the world's premier superpower, force it into a stalemate, and also rebuff Israel's which is the but they've already done all of that.

So you're saying they've won.

They won.They won.They won massive strategic gains.The issue they're facing is that how did they translate these battlefield strategic wins into something that is workable for their management of the country and the economy.

Getting sanctions lifted, unfreezing their assets.

Getting sanctions lifted, getting security that they will not be attacked again, making sure that the U .S.does not go after them again.I mean, they need to sort of cash this in.

I'll be honest, I have no idea how you ever get that assurance from Donald Trump.Because he's not going to respect any piece of paper.He is one of the most dishonest, erratic people we've ever seen in our lifetime in American legal life.

Well, that's why, as I've argued in Financial Times, they will insist on holding on to the Strait of Hormuz and to the highly enriched uranium.In other words, whatever deal they want to sign.

And he said he's not going to allow them to hold on to the highly enriched uranium.

In the Iranian view, a deal, the only thing that would hold Trump and the United States feet to fire is if a deal is reversible.which means that they have to be able to.Yes.In other words you have to you have to give the United States and particularly Donald Trump pause to say if we do this again they're going to close the straight and they already have this diluted highly enriched uranium inside Iran they could very quickly re -enrich it.Could they very quickly if they're being bombed and they're still under sanctions?Well, you could say the argument would be they could do it much faster than if they gave the entire several tons of enriched material and had zero to start with.

So at least they have a baseline.And that's why the possibility of a deal is extremely tenuous.And I would say a deal mayalso be possible if the United States actually was putting an offer on the table.Part of the problem is the U .S.

is not offering anything.It's not really offering money.It's not really offering sanctions relief.It basically is demanding that Iran hand over everything in the response to which is, OK, we lift some international sanctions, but no primary US sanctions, no secondary sanctions, none of that.

And, as you say, no guarantees that any of this sticks.You teach Middle East politics at an elite U .S.university.You have served in government as an adviser under the Obama State Department.You have seen both students starting off their lives, starting off their careers in Washington, D .

C., learning about foreign policy, going to work in the civil service.You have dealt with top -level decision -makers.I wonder how much the ignorance The deliberate ignorance in many ways of people in power, of people in academia about Iran has led us to this juncture.The way we talk about Iran in this country, the mullahs, that has been the short form for years, a very complicated political system, complex regime with multiple actors and multiple agendas reduced to the mullahs over the last 40 -something years.And there's a line that jumped out at me from your foreign affairs piece.

You said, It's been presented within Iran and this country, which is static.We can't even tell the difference between Khomeini and Khamenei.It's just one monolithic, unchanging regime of mullahs from 1979 to now.How much damage has that done to our relationship with Iran, our understanding of Iran?this entire situation we're in?

It has done huge damage because in a way it is to reduce an entire country, its notion of national security, its complexity into a sort of a good versus evil outlook.That might be very helpful if you want to organize the country to go to war with Iran or to say we want to deal with them.I think the problem is also, at some level, that then it becomes very difficult for you to understand how do you conduct diplomacy with them.So when Marco Rubio says that this is a government driven by millenarian views, Shia fanatics, et cetera, then he's missing a point as to what are Iranians afraid of?What do they want?What's their national interest?

And therefore, how do I address those things?It doesn't mean that I need to accommodate them.It means that if we were playing chess, So, what is the theory of a chess game in Iran?How are they going to make their moves?How do they want to checkmate?How do they want to defend their king?

Right?

And they're pretty good at chess in Iran.

Oh, they're pretty good at chess.And basically, we end up in these kinds of throwaway arguments.They're all fractured.They're all fanatical, as if they don't have a game plan.And that's when we basically get caught, as we got in this war, because we could not have fathomed that this kind of a mullahs, evil mullahs would be capable of transforming Iran in an eight -month period.Yes.

To be able to manage the war the way they did.We get shocked the fact that Iran basically frustrated our war aims.And we even get shocked about how do they do Lego memes.These guys supposed to think these things are infidels games.Haram.They should be haram.

So when we see that kind of pragmatic maneuvering, we just don't understand it.And we don't have an answer for it.And I think we've got ourselves to a point, maybe actually Donald Trump, because he's so transactional, is better at understanding it.than the neocons, who are more ideological in the United States.At the end of the day, look.We're trying to cut a deal.

Let's see what these guys want, and we can basically meet them halfway, if that's the case, and not get lost in the fact that they just hate us.They don't want to make a deal, and they want to conquer the world.

That's how we treat every country we go to war with, whether it's Gaddafi, Saddam, Khamenei.On the Lego memes, the right -wing comedian Tim Dillon, who used to be very magger and has turned on Trump, he said he's fine with losing a military war, but he can't bear the idea of losing a meme war.He said that the Americans should be ashamed to be losing that war.In terms of the ignorance, just to go back to that point, because I have you in front of me, an academic.I obviously moved to this country 12 years ago.And it's been amazing to see here in D .

C.just the sheer staggering levels of ignorance and hubris.You look at Donald Trump and you look at this war.He goes on TV and he says, nobody knew they were going to shut the Strait of Hormuz.Everyone knew that.The Iranians said they were going to do that.

Nobody knew they would hit the Gulf countries, he said.The Iranians were very clear they would hit the Gulf countries if they were attacked, and U .S.bases.You have people like Mark Wayne Mullen, who is now a homeland security secretary before he was a senator when the war began.He went on CNN and could not tell the difference between Khamenei and Khomeini.

Like, these are people in leading positions of public life in this country.And I feel, watching as a journalist, I want to tear my hair out.As someone who's here in D .C., has been in government, it must frustrate you to see the the staggering levels of ignorance and incompetence when it comes to America's dealing with Iran?

It's not only existing ignorance.It's also lack of curiosity.Very good point.Especially after we've been caught.Yeah, three months in, there's still no curiosity.There's still no outreach I see from administration, Congress, et cetera, to say.

I mean, they're not going to talk to you.You're seen as some.But do they talk to people?I mean, do you hear in DC, in the think tank academic circuit, is the government calling in?Iran experts to say, tell us what the hell we should be doing? What are

What are we doing wrong?No, no.First of all, they have allergy to experts.Yes.I mean, these two terms don't fit.

Very good point.

Very good point.But no, in reality, no.And those people who have the curiosity, I think, are afraid of their superiors.And I think, actually, now we have a situation which is self -defeating for Trump administration, because they need fresh ideas.They need to know that, OK, we got the enemy wrong.What did we get wrong?

What do we need to know?Obviously, they're thinking in ways that we didn't quite anticipate.We shouldn't be listening to the same group of think tanks that got us to this point and sold us the bill of goods that are wrong.We should just hear a broader set of people.And there's not little evidence of that, in the sense that in the past, with varieties of issues around the world, when you had a negotiating team, whether it was dealing with the Balkans or with Vietnam, et cetera, they would reach to regional experts and say, what do I need to know about this region?What do I need to know about these leaders?

And sort of internalize that without making any commitments.Unfortunately, that's not there.I think the lack of curiosity makes the president much more susceptible to being sold the wrong bill of goods by Bibi or by somebody else.

Well, come back to Bibi, the former US ambassador Peter Galbraith wrote in the aftermath of the Iraq war, I always remember this, that a group of Kurds went to meet George W. Bush in the White House a few months before the invasion in 2003, and they came out of the Oval Office stunned that Bush, even at that point, didn't know the difference between Shia, Sunni, and Kurd in Iraq, had no idea that Iraq was divided in this way.And you think, right now, George Bush feels like an intellectual compared to the Trump administration.It feels like the Bush administration did even, as little preparation as they did for Iraq, they did more than Trump did with Iraq.

Well, I think, actually, to the credit of that,administration is after they fumbled in Iraq, they were all ears.

Yes.

In other words, even I was called in to brief him afterwards.And I got a letter from him thanking me for writing the book Shia Revival.

Of course, I'm sure George Bush read the Shia Revival.I have that book on my shelf.I love the idea that me and George Bush read Vali Nasr's Shia Revival.

But that kind of self -reflection, which at least was displayed.At least they pretended.At least they pretended.It's not evident.

Can you imagine Stephen Miller sending a letter saying thank you for writing your FT piece?It's made us think again.One last thing on the negotiations.One thing we haven't talked about.When Iran has these terms, we've talked about straight -up Hormuz, we've talked about sanctions relief, we've talked about unfreezing of assets, making sure there's no way of reversibility.All interesting.

What about Lebanon?How serious is Iran when Iran says that not bombing Lebanon, Israel's military occupation and attack on Lebanon, that is ongoing as we speak, has to stop as part of any deal?

Well, I mean, I think and a lot of people I've talked to think that Lebanon is ultimately not a deal breaker, although the regime is very, very adamant and people close to the Islamic Republic say, no, this is absolute necessity.

Because of Hezbollah.

Well, not just Hezbollah.Iranians, even within IRGC, feel responsibility for Shias of Lebanon.

Who are being ethnically cleansed right now from southern Lebanon.

Who are being ethnically cleansed.Even before this last phase, about a million of them have been pushed out of their homes.There is a sense of responsibility there, right, which goes beyond Hezbollah.But I think there are two things at play.One is that if Israel is bombing Lebanon the way it is, and it's attacking Beirut, even though Hezbollah may have provoked it, it has provoked it by attacking northern Israel, it doesn't give the leaders in Iran much political space in Tehran to cut a deal, because they also have a rank and file.Even within IRGC, these top generals have to answer the ones behind them.

how could you be signing this deal when there's a massacre over there, right?And if this guy gets away with a massacre in Lebanon, then it's going to be Iraq, and then it's going to be us.

But then you're saying it's not a deal breaker, though.

Well, it puts a lot of pressure.I mean, in the sense that if it's at that level of violence, right, if it's a much lower level, you could say the Iranians could basically get over it.that aspect of this, that this is a test for Donald Trump.Any deal, MOU, other deal Iran signs with the United States has to be contingent on the U .S.being able to control Israel.

And if it cannot control Israel right now, then any deal with Iran can always be undermined by Bibi at some point.And that's why it actually was extremely important for the Iranians that Trump himself, I guess, leaked, or the admission leaked.the telephone call with Bibi.

Well, he confirmed it on camera now with Miranda Devine.

He confirmed it on camera.

And saying that he said that you're fucking crazy.You'll be in prison if it wasn't for me. I'm saving your asses, is what was reported by Axios and confirmed by Trump.That's right.

The Israelis have denied it.That's right.But the point is, it's a signal to the Iranians to say that, OK, he's going to impose discipline.

Although Biden did the same thing.Remember Biden leaked lots of calls.Biden's fucking angry.There's all these F -bombs.He's very upset with Niall, but he didn't do anything about it.

No, he didn't do anything about it.

It was the same media outlet Axios that reported it.

Exactly.Although this is now a little bit...And also, it's not so much the foul language that Trump used.It's actually what he said that's a little bit above.I mean, saying you should be in jail or...

Yeah, I saved it from jail.Exactly.So, just to circle back then, if tomorrow the U .S.and Iran have a deal on the table that the Israelis have signed off on, but that doesn't include any Israeli guarantee of pulling out of Lebanon, and Hezbollah, on the day we're speaking, who knows, by the time this airs, it may be dated, Hezbollah this morning said,we don't accept the cease -fire proposal from Israel because it involves keeping Israeli forces in southern Lebanon indefinitely, a permanent occupation.

If that is still on the table, do the Iranians say, oh, well, sorry, Lebanese, you're on your own, we need to stop this war?Or do they say, we walk away until Israel gets out of southern Lebanon?

Until now, that's a little bit ambiguous.I mean, I think the higher level is that there has to be a cease -fire in Lebanon.Iranians have in the past said that Israel needs to withdraw from Lebanon.But they have not actually previously made that a condition.They've said the war needs to end on all fronts.But that does not mean sort of final status of borders, whether it's in the Strait of Hormuz or in Lebanon, is going to be decided in the memorandum of understanding.

And so, yes, they could revisit this in 30 days when they're negotiating a nuclear deal.And Trump himself, you talked about being a transnational president, he's now bragging about talking to Hezbollah, which is...Kind of crazy for me.You worked for Barack Obama.If Barack Obama had said, as Trump said to reporters on Wednesday, we spoke with Hezbollah for the first time ever.

We didn't know they spoke, which is classic ignorance on Trump's part.We didn't know they spoke.He then posted on June the 1st, a few days earlier, I had a very good call with Hezbollah.They agreed that all studio will stop.I'm trying to imagine if Barack Obama or Joe Biden had said, I had a very good call with Hezbollah, what the right wing media and the Republican Party would have done.Well, it's true.

I mean, there is a Nixon going to China, which is a very good thing, because the United States creates these terms for people, terrorist, etc.And then no politician wants to breach it.So he did this also with Ahmad al -Sharraf.He met with a person who was still designated as a terrorist.

And then hosted him in the White House, gave him cologne.

Right.And then subsequently, his designation was perhaps...He invited the Taliban to Camp David in his first term, which was a huge controversy.So, in a way, those are not bad things, because he's breaking that sort of taboo.

No, I'm not saying inherently they're bad.I'm just saying, for me, the double standards are insane.You know that if a Democrat did any of these things, Fox would be all over them.Look at what they're doing to these Democratic candidates who just won primaries.Adam Hamawi, they're calling him al -Qaeda.So the double standards are insane.

Just before we wrap up, I've got to ask about the current election.political situation here in D .C., you saw on Wednesday night the Iran War Powers Resolution finally passed in the House for the first time, 215 to 208, four Republicans voting yes, Thomas Massey, Brian Fitzpatrick, Tom Barrett and Wayne—Warren Davidson, excuse me.Is this meaningful?Do we think that this will actually have any kind of impact on the Trump administration?

No, I don't think so.I think the president perhaps has concluded that the Democrats are going to win the House anyways in November.His hold over the Republican Party is pretty strong, given what happened in the primaries.So yes, he lost his vote, but some of the people who voted are also the people who are on their way out.So, I don't—unless something happens in Congress that really challenges his hold on the Republican Party for 2028— He could just ignore Congress, though.He could ignore Congress.

So, the only way this war stops is not through any kind of domestic American political action.It's through what the Iranians are able to pull off at the negotiating table.

Well, also he.I mean, Rubio already said the war is over.I think what Donald Trump would prefer is to do absolutely nothing.

He said recently, I'm bored.

No, I mean, look, his preference is that I don't want to go back to war, and I don't see victory at the negotiating table.Why don't we just keep kicking the can down the road?Pretend there is an agreement, then there's no agreement.We can go for a few more months until after the World Cup or something else.

We won't let the Iranian team even come into the game.

But I don't think the Iranians will accept that, because that's not sustainable for them.

Vali, I have an idea as to how the war ends.I have a perfect plan.The Iranians say, unfreeze our assets, but you keep them, and you spend it on the ballroom.Done.Everyone wins.

How's that for an end to the war?That's my idea.Yeah, well, it's quite a lot of assets.Take it to the people about, well, it's quite a big ballroom.

Vali Nasr from Johns Hopkins, thank you so much for your time.Always a pleasure.

Thank you.

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