"It Was A Disaster" – Former Political Prisoner Exposes Failed Iran MOU

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Brian Kilmeade Show

Episode: "It Was A Disaster" – Former Political Prisoner Exposes Failed Iran MOU
Date: July 17, 2026
Host: Brian Kilmeade
Guests: Keon Taj Bakish (Iranian-American scholar, NYU professor, ex-political prisoner, author of Iran Crisis Notebook), General Jack Keane (audio clips)
Main Theme:
A critical deep-dive into the failure and fallout from the June 2026 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the U.S. and Iran, the strategic situation in the Strait of Hormuz, and the naiveté of American negotiators, as exposed by a former Iranian political prisoner.

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Overview of the Episode

Brian Kilmeade brings Keon Taj Bakish, an Iranian-American scholar and former Iranian political prisoner, to the show for a critical assessment of America’s latest Iran policy failures—especially the recently signed and now-unravelling Iran MOU. The episode dissects both the process and substance of the negotiations, exposes Iranian tactics, and challenges prevailing assumptions in U.S. foreign policy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Strategic Importance of the Strait of Hormuz

• General Jack Keane contextualizes (in a pre-recorded audio) why Iran’s attempts to control the strait are central to their strategic aims:
  • “For Iran, the straits for Moses is a strategic asset...It's their number one strategic asset. It gives them leverage over the Gulf states in a region and they truly want to have an element of control here and they are willing to fight us for it." (00:00)

2. Assessment of the U.S. Strike on Iran

• Keon Taj Bakish affirms the recent U.S. military escalation to retake the Strait, stating:
  • “For American interests it was the right thing to do...The MOU that was signed in June was not to the advantage of the United States...I do refer to it as a disastrous document.” (01:27)

3. Why the Iran MOU was Doomed: Negotiation Tactics & Naiveté

• Process breakdown (location changes, lack of direct meetings, optics):
  • “The Iranians asked the US to change the location of the talks...When the Americans accepted that, I said, it was over. What the Iranians were doing was setting the parameters...It was in my view, and I warned this in public: you do not send the second most powerful politician...to meet a fourth level Iranian politician in Islamabad...” (04:17)
  • “We should not accept a childish arrangement where the Iranians say we will not meet you face to face in public...All of this, Brian, was an attempt...to see how far they could push around the American delegation.” (04:17)
  • "And then there was this other indignity...J.D. Vance, our vice president, was sort of on the tarmac. And then the Iranians said, well, you know what, we're not coming." (04:17)

4. Leadership Responsibility and Taking Blame

• On J.D. Vance’s defense of the deal and passing responsibility:
  • “If you allow someone to influence you, be a man and take responsibility. Own it.” (08:49)
  • “It's our decisions. We are the superpower. And so I was just very disturbed by...the lack of ability to take responsibility and to say that, okay, we were essentially played by the MOU and it was going to unravel. And it did unravel.” (09:51)

5. Myth vs. Reality: Iranian Factionalism

• General Jack Keane (audio): "I believe these guys are much more on the same page than people think. They are committed to what Iran has always stood for." (11:55)
• Keon Taj Bakish rebuts the myth of "moderates" in the Iranian system:
  • “I cannot believe we're falling for the same play that the Iranian regime has been using for 25 years...They're the ones in Washington that peddle this distinction between hardliners...And I cannot believe that we're still falling for it.” (12:55)

6. Culture Gap: Interpreting Negotiations

• On the cultural mismatch in negotiation:
  • “In the US, politicians lie in public and then off the record, they'll tell you the truth. It's exactly the opposite in Iran.” (16:39)
  • “[Vance] fell for this. He talked about side agreements, gentlemen's agreements. This was just nonsense. I could have told him.” (16:39)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• General Jack Keane:
  • “No matter what happens here, they will continue to want to take it back from us...and we have got to take it away from them and prevent them from ever getting it back under their control again.” (00:00)
• Keon Taj Bakish:
  • “The whole thing was a disaster from the beginning...It came from the fact that unfortunately, that delegation led by J.D. Vance was inexperienced and also naive and did not have good advice.” (08:28)
  • “In the Middle East, what politicians say to you in private, in English is meaningless. It's only what they say in their own language publicly that is meaningful.” (15:56)
  • “You don't send [the Vice President] to meet a fourth-level Iranian politician in Islamabad...because the Iranians knew that the Pakistanis were against Israel, that the Pakistanis would support them...[Pakistan's rogue scientist] gave them the [nuclear] secrets.” (04:17)
  • “If you allow someone to influence you, be a man and take responsibility. Own it.” (08:49)
• Brian Kilmeade:
  • “So when people say I'm talking to the Foreign Minister, I'm talking to the speaker, much more moderate than the IRGC...they're dealing with him as if they're the good guys and the bad guys...General Keane does not buy it.” (12:37)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00 – General Keane on Iran’s true objectives in the Strait
• 01:27 – Keon Taj Bakish’s initial assessment of the U.S. strike and the failed MOU
• 04:17 – Detailed analysis of MOU negotiation failures and Iranian negotiation strategy
• 08:49 – On J.D. Vance’s responsibility and American leadership
• 11:55 – General Keane on myth of Iranian moderation
• 12:55 – Bakish on Western misunderstanding of Iranian political culture
• 15:56/16:39 – Cultural differences in negotiation: public vs. private statements

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Key Takeaways

• The June MOU was fundamentally misconceived, with American negotiators ceding symbolic and substantive ground to Iranian demands from the outset.
• Iran’s regime consistently manipulates Western naiveté about negotiation dynamics and the reality of Iranian political factions.
• American efforts to distinguish between "moderates" and "hardliners" in the Iranian regime play into Iranian strategic deception.
• Real diplomatic progress is impossible without a deep understanding of Middle Eastern political culture—especially the importance of public, native-language statements versus private English assurances.
• Leadership responsibility is critical; deflecting blame or justifying poor deals only invites further strategic losses.

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Summary crafted in the direct, urgent tone of the conversation, attributing key perspectives and insights to speakers as in the episode.

Transcript

[General Jack Keane]

For Iran, the straits for Moses is a strategic asset. No matter what happens here, they will continue to want to take it back from us because it's number one. They don't have a nuclear power capability. They don't, they're not even close to developing a weapon. Now this is their number one strategic asset. It gives them leverage over the Gulf states in a region and they truly want to have an element of control here and they are willing to fight us for it. And, and we have got to take it away from them and prevent them from ever getting it back under their control again.

[Brian Kilmeade]

General Jack Keane with me on Fox and Friends an hour ago. And he says this is Operation Freedom that stopped in 36 hours because the Saudis didn't want us using their bases. They were nervous about the retaliation. And now he said, screw that, we're going back. You saw that we tried to talk and you saw the results. I don't know the inner workings. That story will come out soon, I imagine. So now we're in day six of extreme and strategic bombing in Iran. Joining us now is Keon Taj Bakish. He's a visiting professor of international relations at nyu. Iranian, American scholar and former political prisoner released as part of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and author of the Iran Crisis Notebook. And you could see that on Substack. Kian, how do you feel about the six day strategic hit to take back the Strait of Hormuz? Is it working?

[Keon Taj Bakish]

Well, good morning, Brian, and thank you so much for inviting me on your show. Well, I don't have up to date, obviously, military intelligence to be able to assess whether it's going to meet its final objectives. But the first thing I can say as a civilian and as a expert on Iranian and US Foreign policy is that for American interests it was the right thing to do. That is to say, it was clearly the MOU that was signed in June was not to the advantage of the United States. It was, let's say, some kind of Hail Mary. I mean, I've written on my, in my X.com post, I do refer to it as a disastrous document. I think it was a misstep. And I think that President Trump is trying to now trying to address or redress that misstep because whatever goodwill the United States extended, either naively or not naively during that MOU was not reciprocated by the Iranian regime. And so there really is no option for US Strategic interests to continue the pressure both kinetically and economically and across the whole military options like cyber and other kinds of psychological and perhaps even support to Iranians inside the regime.

[Brian Kilmeade]

I think you told us that, Keon, and I thought so too. But you're the expert. You live there. You were in prison there. Essentially, you were.

[Keon Taj Bakish]

Yes.

[Brian Kilmeade]

So I couldn't believe how bad the MOU was. I thought, okay, maybe in the end, if it ends up good, we're not gonna remember what the MOU was. But they were allowed to trade oil right away for 60 days. They begin to set operations to take over the strait. I could easily have read it that way, even though the American intention was they said not to write it that way. So J.D. vance was asked to defend it. And tell me what you think of this. Cut 15.

[J.D. Vance]

And then can I just say one other thing about this? Because there are people, you know, you see Mike Pence, who's sort of a super hawk, my predecessor, who say this. There are people, you know, who are super hawkish in the American system who have attacked the deal and frankly, in some ways have tried to derail the deal. And what I always say to those people is, what. What is your proposal? What is your actual argument?

[Brian Kilmeade]

So I wanted you to take him on. So he was defending his mou. So what do you say, Keon?

[Keon Taj Bakish]

Yeah, well, look, I think there really is no defense of the mou. It was a complete misunderstanding of the Iranians. I mean, Brian, I think we talked about this earlier. Listen. And I wrote about it in my substack, Day one, in which the Iranians. I mean, I'm not nitpicking here when I know the Iranian mindset when it comes to negotiations. When the Iranians asked the US to change the location of the talks that ended up in Oman, I said to myself, it's over. When the Americans accepted that, I said, it was over. What the Iranians were doing was setting the parameters. They were testing J.D. vance and his team about how far they could manipulate him and. And push him. And it was in my view, and I warned this in public. I mean, I'm not a senior official with. I don't have the ear of the officials. But I. But if anyone had asked me, I said, please do not. And I think I may have even said this on your show, Brian, you do not send the second most powerful politician in the world who represents the entire American people. You don't send him to meet a fourth level Iranian politician in Islamabad where he has been drawn. Why Islamabad? It was decided by the Iranians. Why Pakistan? Because the Iranians knew that the Pakistanis were against Israel, that the Pakistanis would support them. Look, the Pakistanis have supported Iranian nuclear program. They gave them the secrets. The Khan Q Network years ago, it was a Pakistani rogue scientist that gave Iranians nuclear secrets. A. Q. Khan. Yes, that's right. That's right, A. Q. Khan. And they were in touch with the North Koreans and then the Pakistanis. So the very acceptance of the Vice President to even go along with the Iranians in changing the location and then even more embarrassing, and I warned this, Brian over again, is that we should never accept this is undignified for the great superpower of the United States. We should not accept a childish arrangement where the Iranians say we will not meet you face to face in public. And it'll be like you're in this room and I'm in this room and we send little notes to each other. All of this, Brian, was an attempt by the Iranians to see how far they could push around the American delegation. And what they saw was the Americans went all the way, they changed it. And then there was this other indignity. Remember the first night that they were supposed to go to Switzerland? You know, J.D. vance, our vice President, was sort of on the tarmac. And then the Iranians said, well, you know what, we're not coming. And that he had to say, well, I don't know, maybe I'll just hang around on the tarmac until the, you know, until the Iranians let me know when it's good to come. We should be setting the parameters, we should be setting the location. We should say we will not meet with anyone except in public, except and face to face. What are we? We are untouchable. We are the American. So I think the whole thing was a disaster from the beginning. And then the actual content of it was even more shocking. And I think that it came from the fact that unfortunately, that delegation led by J.D. vance was inexperienced and also naive and did not have good advice. And then unfortunately, in this very disturbing, I think conversation with Josh Rogan, I mean there are two things about that. First of all, to peddle anti Israel, typical anti, almost anti Semitic conspiracy theories about well funded secret groups that are trying to undo my mou.

[Brian Kilmeade]

No, you're quoting him by the way. You're quoting him. Kiyan, you're quoting.

[Keon Taj Bakish]

Yes, I'm quoting him. And then what I wrote in X.com was not about the content. I said, My goodness, Mr. Vice President, take responsibility. He said, and I quoted him. And he said, and I quoted this exactly in my X.com post. What used to be called Twitter. I said, you know, what he said was this. He said, what really bothers me is when American politicians allow themselves to be influenced by foreign forces. And I pointed out, very simply, I said, Come on, Mr. Vice President, can you hear what you're saying? If you allow someone to influence you, be a man and take responsibility. Own it. You don't have to do it. In President Trump's first term, the Israeli prime Minister and his own inner circle, including people like Ambassador Bolton, who writes about this in his memoir, they went to President Trump and they said, I think we should launch regime change and military operations against Iran. And President Trump said, no, I don't agree with that. And then in his second term, he. He was open to it. That is to say, it is the US President's responsibility in the end to decide what advice, what influence he's going to allow to influence him and to shape his decisions. It's our decisions. We are the superpower. And so I was just very disturbed by the entire approach and the lack of. And the lack of ability to take responsibility and to say that, okay, we were essentially played by the MOU and it was going to unravel. And it did unravel.

[Brian Kilmeade]

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[Keon Taj Bakish]

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[Brian Kilmeade]

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[Brian Kilmeade]

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[Brian Kilmeade]

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[Brian Kilmeade]

Right. And I could say, you know, there's a misinterpretation on rule number five and number 14 that it's not the way we. And you could say that, but the bottom line is they left open the management of the strait to Oman and Iran after the 60 days, and they weren't even waiting 60 days. They were shooting at ships for not listening to them right away. So I want you to hear what General Keene Said and I thought this was conventional wisdom, but I love your perspective of going inside the Iranian mindset. This is what cut 11 I've never

[General Jack Keane]

bought the fact that there's that much of a division. The guy that was ahead of the political side of his gala buff look at his best friend in life is Qassem Soleimani. They joined the IRGC together, they became generals together. He then moved to the diplomatic side and moved away from the military side of the irgc. Kasamani went on to fame obviously and becameestablished a professional relationship and a personal one with the Ayatollah and nobody in between. And he ran obviously the entire foreign policy instrument of supporting the proxies. I believe these guys are much more on the same page than people think. They are committed to what Iran has always stood for.

[Brian Kilmeade]

So when people say I'm talking to the Foreign Minister, I'm talking to the speaker, much more moderate than the irgc, which is led by fahiti. I think that's why we're and they're dealing with him as if they're the good guys and the bad guys of the irgc. The General Keane does not buy it. He thinks he was speaking from the same hymn book.

[Keon Taj Bakish]

Brian I cannot believe we're falling for the same play that the Iranian regime has been using for 25 years. I've been writing about this, I've been talking about that. I've stood. I have been in many meetings with people like Golibouff, the previous Foreign Minister, the Deputy Minister, the irgc. When I was in prison and being interrogated, I was interrogated many hours by very senior. I couldn't see them because I was blindfolded and facing a wall or sometimes I think I once was possibly I can't prove it, but I think I was interrogated either by Ghassem Soleimani's deputy who was sat behind a one way mirror and he wanted to know and he wanted to ask me who in the White House and the CIA and all those things I was in touch with and I said, you don't really believe that I'm a member of the CIA, do you? And he looked, I heard a silence. And then the person who was sitting next to him that I could see by the wall, he said, look, actually we don't believe you're a member of the CIA because if you had been, we would have killed you already. And he was absolutely serious, he said, you would be dead. And so I cannot believe that this play is still going on and A lot of it has to do with Brian, with. Unfortunately, I wrote a very long critique of these so called Iran experts who I have referred to uncharitably as the useful idiots of the Iran think tank world. They're the ones in Washington that peddle this distinction between hardliners and think over and over again. And I cannot believe that we're still falling for it. Look, look, I'll tell you one simple thing. I told this on national TV and no one seemed to take this seriously at the time. When Vaz went to Islamabad, I said, where is the photograph? There was no evidence up to this day. Brian, it's like a scoop. But I'm a scientist. I'm a political scientist. I look for evidence. Where was the photograph of Vance and Golubov in the same room, let alone shaking hands? There wasn't. Now, I'm not being a conspiracy theorist. What I'm saying is that two things are possible. One is actually they never met in person. Second, if they did meet in person, why on earth would the American delegation not, you know, agree to keep that photograph hidden? And the reason is because of a very simple rule that unfortunately, American policymakers who have unfortunately, not enough knowledge about the complicated psychology of Iranians and the Middle East. Look, Brian, in the Middle east, what politicians say to you in private, in English is meaningless. It's only what they say in their own language publicly that is meaningful.

[Brian Kilmeade]

So interesting. That's the exact opposite of what you would think.

[Keon Taj Bakish]

Well, so listen, that's why the Americans who don't have experience get caught out. It's exactly the opposite of the way political culture works in Iran. In the us, politicians lie in public and then off the record, they'll tell you the truth. It's exactly the opposite in Iran. And Vance fell for this. He talked about side agreements, gentlemen's agreements. This was just nonsense. I could have told him.

[Brian Kilmeade]

Please waste your time.

[Keon Taj Bakish]

Don't buy it.

[Brian Kilmeade]

It's unbelievable. Kian, you're 100% right. Kian. Taj Bakish, Visiting professor at International Relations at nyu. And of course you were held political prisoner as part of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. You were able to get out and author of the Crisis Notebook on Substack Keanu, it was great to talk to you. Hopefully have good news to talk about soon.