← The Long Game with Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer
The Long Game with Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer
Geopolitics of the Olympics & Iran's Deal Dilemma
00:54:27
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- [00:01]
A
I'm Estad Herndon, and this week on Today Explained, I traveled to Minneapolis to speak with Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is suing the Trump administration over ice descending on his state.
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B
It would mean that we had federal.
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C
Active duty troops patrolling our streets, which is concerning because the way ice does.
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B
Its business has been proven over and over again to be deeply problematic.
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A
New episodes of Today Explained drop every day of the week, wherever you get your podcasts. And you can now watch our Saturday interviews@YouTube.com fox.
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B
It does raise a question for me, John, about whether Donald Trump, when he's thinking about the possibility of conducting military strikes against Iran, is actually thinking, hey, should I do this during the Olympics or not? Welcome to the long game. I'm Jake Sullivan.
- [00:51]
C
And I'm John Finer.
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B
So for our listeners today, John Finer is currently traveling abroad on a magical mystery tour of the world and in the process of that has lost his voice. He is gamely playing injured like Michael Jordan in the flu game. So you're gonna get the abbreviated version of the long game for this week, but we definitely wanted to cover a couple of things. One, quickly, the Winter Olympics get underway this weekend, and we don't wanna miss an opportunity to talk about the broader geopolitical backdrop of the Olympics. And then second, we'd like to do a special red team, blue team from the Iranian perspective. Basically, we will each play an Iranian advisor to the supreme leader, one of us arguing that Iran should take a deal with the United States in these talks that are unfolding in the Middle east over Iran's nuclear program and other things. The other will argue that Iran should not take a deal and court the potential risk of military action. Let's get underway. So, Jon, how you doing?
- [01:56]
C
You know, I feel fine. My voice is, as everybody can tell, not great, but I feel better than I sound, let's put it that way.
- [02:03]
B
And this is not because you're worried about losing to me on red team, blue team, that you're. It's like pulling a hammy or something.
- [02:09]
C
I feel like it's the way in golf you have a handicap that kind of brings us to the same level. Maybe that'll happen for our debate this time.
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B
Touche. That's very. That's very well said.
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C
You know, if Lindsey Vonn can race in the Olympic downhill with a torn anterior cruciate ligament, which I guess maybe we should discuss, then I should be able to do a podcast with a sore throat.
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B
So the Winter Olympics get underway imminently here. How excited are you?
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C
Honestly, my first memory in life is watching the 1980 Olympic hockey gold medal game or the silver medal game, I guess, us against the Russians with my dad in a very cold house in northern Vermont, not that far, Lake Placid, where the game actually was played. And so I've been following very closely ever since. I come from a town, actually, that claims, I may not be accurate, that it has more Winter Olympic athletes per capita than any other place in America, Norwich, Vermont. So although I don't think they have.
- [03:07]
B
Anybody in the Olympics this year, Norwich, Vermont, small town. To have more Winter Olympians per capita, you said, than anyone else.
- [03:14]
C
Per capita. We can't claim overall, but I think it's 11 total for a town of 3,000 people.
- [03:20]
B
Pretty impressive. I've got my own bragging rights, which is I come from a town, Minneapolis, Minnesota, that Lindsey Vaughn comes from. And in fact, I grew up skiing on the same hill that she learned how to ski on. She's a little better than me, just a little. You could at least if you're an expert skier, you could notice the differences. But very proud to be a fellow Minnesotan, Lindsey Vaughn, and rooting for her in her last race before the Olympics, as you said, she completely blew out her acl and yet she says she's going to compete in the downhill anyway, which would be quite interesting to watch.
- [03:54]
C
She's also almost our age, which is remarkable in its own right. So to be competing at this age and then obviously with this horrible injury, so amazing watching that one closely. Second for me, or probably first for me, honestly, is going to be the hockey. The one somewhat controversial element of the hockey, although I support the way the Olympics are proceeding, is that many of the very best hockey players in the world, including the guy who is now the all time leading goal scorer in the history of the National Hockey League, Alex Ovechkin, are not going to be playing in this year's Olympics, even though NHL players will be playing for the first time in a while because the Russian Olympic team is not going to be allowed to compete. Support the decision. We'll miss watching some of the great Russian hockey players participating this year.
- [04:42]
B
So this is a really important piece of context for these Olympics. This is the first Winter Olympics since the invasion of Ukraine. It's kind of incredible, tragic, brutal, that it's been almost four years since Russia invaded Ukraine, and they did so just a few days after the end of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the last Winter Olympic Games. Vladimir Putin waited until his buddy Xi Jinping was done hosting those, those games and then launch this Massive invasion against Ukraine. What the Winter Olympic Committee has done is said that no Russian teams can play. So as John, you just mentioned, the Russian hockey team is not allowed to participate. This is going to be almost an all NATO hockey tournament, especially now that Finland and Sweden are in NATO. In the first Olympics, as NATO members, Finland and Sweden will be competing and actually playing against each other, which is sort of interesting. But Russian athletes are allowed to participate, although they're participating as, quote, individual neutral athletes. And maybe the biggest head to head matchup between an American and a Russian will be in men's figure skating, where the quad God, Ilya Malinin from the United States, who's actually of Russian heritage, will be going up against Petr Gumennik of the Russian Federation, although he'll be participating not under a Russian flag. And if Russians win any gold medals, they don't get the anthem, they don't get the flag. They get some. I guess they get the Olympic flag or something. But it'll be interesting to watch that race because figure skating is kind of Russia's crown jewel of soft power, I guess, or historically has been. But the Americans have an amazing competitor in Ilia, so we'll have to see how this plays out. What do you think of the way that the Olympic Committee ended up slicing the bread on this one with this individual, neutral athletes thing?
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C
You know, a lot of sports have been wrestling with this. Tennis is another one where there are a number of top Russian athletes who compete often without their flags being displayed in Grand Slam tournaments and other places. On the one hand, I do feel for the athletes involved. These are people who have committed their entire lives to sport. They have, in many, if not all cases, very little, if anything to do with Russian foreign policy or the Russian government. And yet they pay this enormous personal price sometimes not being able to compete at all. Russia, by the way, has been in and out of the Olympics for more than a decade now. Not just tied to geopolitics, but also tied to allegations and I think proven allegations that they were involved in drug doping over a number of years.
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B
There's a very good documentary about this, the Icarus Project. Right. It started as one documentary, just about competing in competitive cycling. The guy doing the documentary kind of discovered halfway through this industrial scale drug doping scandal. And the rest of the documentary lays that all bare. It's remarkable. So highly recommend.
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C
So this compromise that the Olympics has settled on, where individuals can compete, but not as a Russian team, I guess, is better than a total ban. But for sports like hockey, you can't obviously compete as an individual so those athletes are cut out. While we're plugging documentaries, it is also worth noting, I think Netflix has just come out with yet another I think there are now several of these documentary about the 1988 US Olympic hockey team called Miracle the Boys of 80 which is just outstanding. There's a bunch of new footage. I think that even though this is now not to date ourselves quite some time ago, that has not been seen before in this film. So worth watching to kind of hype yourself up to watch the Olympics I think.
- [08:37]
B
Oh I didn't realize that was out. Oh exciting. So I got something to turn on and watch before the opening ceremony. Okay, I'll just give a last plug since we're on a roll with plugs, but there is a great YouTube video of a little kid in a suit doing the Herb Brooks miracle speech from the movie. I'm sick of tired hearing about what.
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C
A great hockey team the Soviets have.
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B
Screw em this is your time now. Go out there and take it. Highly recommend everybody. It will bring a tear to your eye. And speaking of hyping you up to support the red, white and blue in the Olympics, this will this will get you going. Speaking of the red, white and blue and Uncle Sam, another kind of geopolitical backdrop to these Olympics is that the Trump administration is actually sending ICE officials to accompany the U.S. olympic team to Italy. And this is causing some real political and operational friction with the Italian police and the Italian government. According to the DHS spokespeople, they're going the ICE team is going to work with the State Department to quote, vet and mitigate risks from transnational criminal organizations, not to conduct immigration enforcement. The whole thing just seems very bizarre that they're doing this almost tailor made to just create division friction challenge. So we will have to watch how this ends up playing out over the early days of the Games. But of course the Games are taking place against this broader context in the United States of the continuum ICE crackdown that we talked about with Eben Asnos last week.
- [10:21]
C
Yeah, very odd move from a soft power perspective. If the Olympics is about putting your best national foot forward. Press reports that ICE is going to be present at the same time as people around the world are watching them crack down on American cities. And in the context of two killings that have taken place I think is maybe not the best for the US Brand. But that's not always this administration's primary concern.
- [10:47]
B
And then the other thing on my checklist, my kind of geopolitics and Olympics checklist. We talked about U.S. russia, and there's the long history of the U.S. and Russia and the U.S. and the Soviet Union going head to head in the Olympics. Now we've got the new geopolitical competition, US China. And frequently in the last few Olympics, there's been a big race for the top spot in the medal count between the US And China. One of the interesting subplots here is that Eileen Gu, who has been the very best half pipe, slope style, big air snowboarder in the world, born in San Francisco, so born here in the United States, but competed for China in the Beijing Olympics in 2022 and is going to compete for them again in 2026. And she dominated last time around and we'll see if she dominates again. But it produces this kind of interesting cultural soft power backdrop of its own kind in the US China context, and it'll be interesting. She's very fun to watch, but I have to confess I will be strongly rooting for the Americans to get back to the top of the podium and these events, particularly these snowboarding events that we've tended to dominate over the years.
- [12:09]
C
As will I. Although I will say the United States tends to be also the beneficiary of these sorts of decisions made by athletes to come to our country and compete on our behalf. I think we're still in the positive on net overall.
- [12:23]
B
Very good point. You could say that at a deep structural level. And then also folks who come here as adults and choose to come to the U.S. there's also a storied tradition of American athletes who can't make the U.S. team going and taking citizenship elsewhere to be able to compete. Rare, though, to have someone who could be the leading player or competitor on a US Team actually choose to go compete for someone else. I can't think of another case like Eileen Gu where that's happened.
- [12:54]
C
So usually Americans decide to do this. If they can't quite find their way onto the US Team because it's too competitive, they'll go and play for a nation of their ancestry or something.
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B
So, for example, my nephew Jack, my sister Meg's oldest son, was born in Guatemala. Guatemala, like the United States, has birthright citizenship. So I've often talked to him about being a Guatemalan skier or Guatemalan curler or Guatemalan luger and leading a Guatemalan team into the Winter Olympics. And speaking of unusual countries participating in the Winter Olympics, there's actually gonna be two skiers from the UAE in this Olympic Games. And I looked that up when I Saw it because I was like, what is going on here? One of them, a guy named Alex Astridge, actually grew up in the uae. His family were expats there, but he learned how to ski at this thing called Ski Dubai, which is this big indoor ski area in Dubai. Have you ever skied there?
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C
Strange coincidence. In 2005, traveled to Dubai when I was a reporter for the Washington Post and wrote a travel article about the opening of Ski Dubai. I was living in Iraq. It was a nice respite from covering the war. And so actually skied it and wrote about it just after the opening. But I've not been back now in more than 20 years.
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B
Okay, we'll find that article and put it in the show notes. Because this is just like this tiny indoor ski facility in the middle of a desert nation on the edge of the Persian Gulf. And this kid who learned how to ski there is now skiing in the Olympics. Kind of remarkable. An interesting human interest story for people to watch.
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C
These one person, one athlete. Olympic teams that some countries have, I find just fascinating to watch because normally you watch people walk around the track during the opening ceremonies. US Team with its hundreds of athletes, other countries with these enormous teams, and then some countries with, as you just mentioned, the uae, a couple of people. I think there are a few countries with just a single athlete competing, the person carrying the flag with nobody behind them in the middle of all these enormous teams. So pretty cool thing.
- [15:06]
B
Yeah, that's awesome. So to close this out here and to have a seamless transition into the potential for war and the prospect of diplomacy with Iran, there's this very long history, going all the way back to Greek times, of an Olympic truce. And at various points, countries or the United nations have called for Olympic truces. In fact, when we were in the Biden administration, there was a proposal put forward by President Macron and others that there be an Olympic truce, basically a ceasefire, in Ukraine in 2024 during the summer Olympics. The Russians did not agree to that. The war continued. It doesn't look like there will be any kind of truce or ceasefire in Ukraine during these Olympics, although you never know. But it certainly looks like that war will continue to grind away throughout these Games. But it does raise a question for me, John, about whether Donald Trump, when he's thinking about the possibility of conducting military strikes against Iran, is actually thinking, hey, should I do this during the Olympics or not? Now, on the one hand, you might think that's not the kind of thing he would care about at all. On the other hand, he's a bit of a reality TV guy. He's a bit of a production guy and a sportsman. So do you think. And a sports guy. Do you think that's weighing on the minds of the Trump administration at all, that we're about to enter this Olympic period or. That's not really a big consideration?
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C
I see no evidence that it is, although for the reasons you laid out, you could imagine this at least crossing his mind. Certainly if this were during the World cup, which was we've discussed the United States will be co hosting this summer, I think it would probably weigh more heavily on him since he'd be more on the hook for producing a great event here. I think he may be just as likely to join this infamous list of countries that have not only said no to truces, but have actually kind of actively violated them by starting hostilities during these periods. The Russians sort of famously, I guess between the Olympics and Paralympics in 2008, launched an invasion of Georgia. And there have been other instances of this as well. So I think just as likely the US Joins that list as the truce list.
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B
And we should say that the Olympic truce that is requested each time covers both the Olympics and the Paralympics. Paralympics usually follows the Olympics. And again in 2014, between the Olympics and the Paralympics, Russia took over Crimea.
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C
Exactly.
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B
In both 08 in the Summer Games and 14 in the Winter Games, we've seen the Russians do that. Maybe Donald Trump will be taking a page from their playbook and launch action. To your point, he may not consider these a real Olympics because they're not in the United States, they're somewhere else. But I do think it's at least kind of it's an interesting confounding factor in a way. I just wonder if anyone in THE SITUATION Room is even raising the question. And there are reasons to think not, but you never know. So with that, we are going to turn to a special rendition of Red Team, Blue Team.
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A
It may not feel like it, but Trump's approval rating is some of the lowest in recorded history. And it's fallen to new lows in recent weeks as the nation reels from recent killings of two anti ice protesters in Minnesota. But not everyone thinks he's failing. This week we're hearing from Trump voters.
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C
It is very unfortunate that it happened.
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B
But it's also unfortunate that the ice is being blamed for like just murdering somebody who is just so innocent, which isn't the case whatsoever.
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C
A, they were provoked. B, he got ran over.
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B
And, you know, it just, it's hard.
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C
To tell what's real and what's not anymore. He's delivered on virtually every promise he's made. The economy is booming right now. He closed the border.
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B
We're not getting any more illegals in.
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C
That has been done.
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B
That was a major promise. That's been done today.
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A
Explained. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.
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B
We have done red team, blue teams on Iran before from the perspective of the United States. But now we want to do one from the perspective of Iran. The supreme Leader and the leadership in Iran more generally have decisions to make about what posture they're going to take in these negotiations in Oman. And John will be arguing that Iran should lean forward and try to take a deal. I will be arguing that Iran should be very skeptical and refuse a deal, at least on the kinds of terms that seem to be on the table from the Trump administration. But maybe we should just take a minute here to set the terms of what is happening in these talks and then dig into the red team, blue team. So, John, do you want to set up the context that brings us to this debate?
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C
The talks themselves are scheduled for Friday. Already going into these talks, there has been a lot of debate, negotiation about what we sometimes call in diplomacy, the shape of the table, which is a shorthand way of saying the sort of logistics, not the substance of, of the discussions where they will take place. Initially, these were thought to be taking place in Istanbul. Iranians were said to have agreed to that. Then the Iranians came out and said, no, Turkey is sort of a hostile country to us, friendlier to the United States. We want to do these in Oman. The United States sort of discussed whether or not they would accept that. It looks like now, as of when we're recording this, they will accept these talks being moved to Oman, which is more of a neutral country by the Iranian standards. And then there's the debate about what will actually be discussed in these talks. And I think there are two big questions on the table. One is obviously related to Iran's nuclear program. Everyone will recall, and we've discussed on this podcast, that the United States and Israel last summer, during what is called the 12 Day War, bombed and by President Trump's account, quote, unquote, obliterated Iran's nuclear program. But the future of it is still a matter of diplomatic negotiation, negotiation and what Iran will commit to going forward. And then second, what I guess we would call non nuclear issues that are at stake, issues like Iran's ballistic missile program, which it used to attack Israel now a number of times in recent years, and also to attack qatar during that 12 day war, and then Iran's support for proxies, terrorist organizations and others in the region, although, as we have discussed, those organizations have been badly weakened during the course of the last few years. So I think those will be the main topics the US Would like to discuss during the course of these talks.
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B
Yeah, just a couple of observations before we get the actual Red Team, Blue Team underway. One, you mentioned that President Trump after the military strikes that Israel and then the United States took last summer, said that Iran's program was not just obliterated, but totally obliterated. Totally obliterated.
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C
Even better.
- [22:37]
B
So it's interesting that now one of the agenda items is actually shipping out Iran's enriched uranium stockpile and placing some ceiling on or limits on or suspension of enrichment by Iran, which kind of implies that Iran's nuclear program was not totally obliterated, because if it were, it probably wouldn't have to be a subject of diplomatic agreement between the two sides. So I think we've long said that we thought that was puffery on the part of the president. But now he almost implicitly seems to be accepting that Iran's program was not totally obliterated and has to be dealt with and in this instance has to be dealt with at the diplomatic negotiating table. Second point, the interesting collection of countries that were originally invited to sit around the table with the US And Iran, Turkey, Qatar, the uae, Saudi and Pakistan kind of interested in why Pakistan was part of that list. Of course, Pakistan being a country that has nuclear weapons itself and has strained relations in many ways with Iran and frankly strained relations with some of the other countries on that list. But Iran has said they want this just to be bilateral, as you mentioned. And so we'll have to see who's actually in the room and who's just kind of hanging around the Star wars bar scene outside. It'll be, I think, quite an interesting gathering of folks there in Oman. And then finally the US View and Secretary Rubio laid this out, is that this agenda as you described, should include the nuclear program, ballistic missiles, support for these proxy terrorist groups around the region, and as Rubio said, Iran's treatment of its own people. Iran has basically said we're coming to talk about nukes and not these other things, not missiles, not regional issues, not domestic issues. So I think there's going to be a tussle over what's really actually on the table, and Iran's going to come quite nervous that they're going to get drawn into something that goes to the Heart of issues that are extremely central to their entire revolutionary agenda. First, the ballistic missile program to protect themselves. Second, their ability to keep supporting, funding, arming, backing groups like Hezbollah or militia groups in Iraq or Syria or other places. Final point. And then you should get us underway with the Iranian argument, the Iranian adviser's argument to the Supreme Leader that he should take a deal. President Trump has been both saying a deal is possible and threatening Iran with consequences if there is no deal. I think one pithy way he put it was, if we could work something out, that'd be great, and if we can't, probably bad things would happen. Probably bad things would happen. And the US has built up a massive military presence in and around the region, including a carrier strike group, including fighter air wings, including all of the tankers and surveillance aircraft necessary to support a strike. So a military strike against Iran remains very much on the table even as these talks are underway. So with that, John, I'll turn it over to you to get us underway, the case to the aging, ailing Supreme Leader of Iran about why he should go ahead and do a deal with President Trump and the Americans.
- [26:18]
C
All right, so, Jake, I will begin this somewhat surreal exercise of pretending to advise someone you and I have both now worked over a period of more than a decade to counter from the perspective of US Policy. That is the exercise. And we've done this on the podcast before with Vladimir Putin, so we will try it with the Supreme Leader someday.
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B
We'll get to Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping and who knows who else. And it's important we do this because, as we've said before, putting yourself in the shoes of your adversaries is an important way to play out how they're thinking, what they're debating. And I think that improves your overall diplomatic strategy, negotiating strategy, and ultimately, if you decide you need to take military action, it gives you a better perspective on that as well.
- [27:07]
C
I would start off by saying if we are to confront the west, which I'm all for, as I know you're all for, timing is important, and now is definitely not the right time to do it. Our air defenses against attack are as weak as they have ever been. Virtually gone. We have not yet had the opportunity to rebuild them from the 12 Day War last summer. We have just survived the most sustained protests our government has faced, maybe since the revolution in 1979. Our currency is worth less than fake money at this point. The economy needs a boost, not another attack. And the first US President who has ever bombed our territory. And the One who is probably the closest to our enemy. Israel is still sitting in the Oval Office. So we need a timeout and to build back a bit. Not another war. The timing is bad. Second, if the US Attacks this time, it could be the big one, not like the last time, where, yes, they did significant damage to our nuclear program, but they did nothing to unsettle or destabilize our regime. This guy Trump over there believes now, having used military force a couple of times during his first tour in office, the first year in office, in this second term, that he can do this with impunity, that the US Military can accomplish anything, and he will pay very little price for it. And while we will do everything on our side to teach him a different lesson, if he makes the mistake of attacking us this time, I do want to be straight with you, that this could be the end of all of us if he chooses to go after regime targets, not just nuclear sites, not just military sites. And our number one goal for all of us should be to preserve the Islamic Republic. Those are hard words to say. Sure, it sounds strange because it's very rarely the case, but the world is actually with us right now. Even more than that, the region is with us. Yes, they are extremely angry about the crackdown that we had to conduct to preserve stability in our country against the criminals who are protesting the regime. But everyone, with the exception of Israel, who will never be with us, is telling President Trump right now that he should not bomb. So we actually have an opportunity here to break out from the regional isolation that we have been facing, to seem like the reasonable party and make President Trump and the United States look like the warmongers that they are. Either he takes a deal that we put on the table or not, but we should offer one. And just to remind you, we are already now selling more oil than we have at any time since the nuclear deal that we made with Obama. A little bit more relief, and we can start the process of getting our economy back on track. So what would we have to give up to do a deal? Because I want to be straight with you about that. This is not going to come for free, but I also believe the price is not that high and something that we can manage. There is a deal that would be a win for Iran that President Trump can still take, or at least that he should be able to take. Look, this guy does not really know the details. I don't have to tell you that. He just wants to be able to claim a win for himself, for the United States, and The silver lining, if there is one of the 12 Day War, which did not go well for us, to say the least, is that to make a deal with Trump now, you would not have to actually order your nuclear scientists to halt enrichment, which is the demand that the United States principle demand the United States had. We aren't enriching uranium anyway for the first time in many, many years, and we won't be able to for several years. So just tell Trump something that is a factual statement on its own, which is we will not enrich uranium during the remaining tenure of your administration. You, Mr. President, would then be the first president to claim that since Bill Clinton in the 1990s. It's not that much of a concession, sir leader, because we can't do it anyway. And okay, if you can't go that far, there's also a backup plan. You could tell him that we will not enrich uranium below ground ever again. President Obama, as you well know, allowed us to enrich uranium in Fordo, deeply buried in a mountain that made it harder for the United States and maybe impossible for Israel to reach by military action. If you say we would only ever enrich above ground, you reserve the right for Iran to enrich. And President Trump could say he got a better deal than Obama and I can bomb that facility at any time. Either of those should allow him to claim a win. You can also offer President Trump one more thing that he wants and that I think costs us very little. You know that space program that we have where we periodically try to send satellites into space? Often these launches are wildly unsuccessful. The rockets fail, sometimes they succe. Everybody knows at this point that this is a cover for us to start the process of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile that could maybe someday reach the United States. That is many years away from coming to fruition, especially because these launches never seem to work. We tested one again, by the way, last summer just after the 12 day war, just to show the world that we were still able to do this sort of thing. Tell President Trump that for the near term, we will drop that, too. In fact, you never even have to acknowledge that we're dropping it. He can announce it. You don't have to speak to it. And that's one more thing he could claim as some sort of a win that is not actually a real capability for us and won't be for quite some time, to be honest. You may not have to give up anything else when it comes to either missiles or certainly our internal domestic sovereign right to govern our people, which I Do not believe you should put on the table. Table. But if they push you on the rest of our missile program, you could agree to launch a negotiation with the other regional countries. That is basically what they are asking for anyway. Say that you'll sit at the table with the Saudis, the Qataris, the Emiratis. You could even say the Israelis, although I don't think we should do that, and I don't think they would anyway. But these countries want to be in a discussion with Iran about the regional security situation. They are telling the Trump administration as much. They have missile capabilities of their own. That negotiation never has to reach an agreement. It could just make you look reasonable and tell him that the United States doesn't need to be a part of this conversation. It's a regional security issue, and I think the other countries in the region will back you. But the bottom line, and where I will leave this argument, is that you need to buy time. Nothing in the United States these days lasts longer than one administration anymore. Anything you commit to now will really only be valid for the next few years. By the way, the United States doesn't tend to keep the agreements it makes even within this administration. So the commitment is not as severe, the duration is not as long, and the timing for us right now is terrible for a confrontation. So we should do what we have to do to avoid1.
- [34:28]
B
Well, Mr. Supreme Leader, or whatever we're supposed to call you, your craziness, my colleague has just laid out a very rational, very logical case. It sounds to me like very Western rationality, very Western logic. And what we didn't hear from him were the principles of the revolution, the dignity of the Iranian people, the pride of the Iranian nation, the history of our great civilization which stands up to and resists the pressure and the bullying and the imperialism of the Americans. And what he is telling you to do is basically make a series of cowardly concessions in the face of a gun pointed in your face. Iranians don't do that. And especially your revolution, which you are the guardian of, does not do that. We stand up, up on behalf of all the people of the world who want to see us resisting and pushing back against American aggression and American imperialism. So let me just start there. Related to that, you cannot trust the Americans. We were negotiating in good faith with them about these same set of issues, hearing these same arguments from misguided advisors like the one you just heard from. And last summer, in the middle of those negotiations, which, by the way, were supposed to take place in Oman, just like this one, Donald Trump gave Israel the green light to hit us. The Zionists got to hit us, and then the Americans hit us too. So they could do that again anytime. And just remember that when you think about making concessions to these people, and even if they do a deal, even if they made some agreement with us, even if you put these concessions on the table and they said, okay, that deal's not gonna last, this president, Donald Trump, this man, he's already pulled out of a deal on the nuclear program before and he'll do it again. And we've just seen him in the last few months make deals with other countries, even his best friends, like the Europeans. And once he's made a deal and they think, okay, we've conceded a little and now we're good, he just goes back and demands more and then demands more and demands more. And we've been taught that countries that push back, that say, no, those are the ones that get a decent outcome with this guy. Now, if you give up the stockpile or you agree to suspend enrichment for the next few years, you are giving up the leverage that we have, the thing we have that keeps the Americans and everyone else nervous about, about it. Once we surrender, we're completely naked. As long as we have it, we've got this possibility that we could dash for a bomb, that we could create new security complications for the rest of the world and for the Americans and the Israelis and everyone else. And that preserves some degree of deterrence for us. And it's a Trojan horse, it's a trap to say, well, we'll just give up enrichment for a little while. Because once the Americans taste that, they're just going to demand more and more and more and they're not going to stop with just the nuclear program. They want our missiles. And I cannot believe that my colleague said to you, maybe we should have some agreement with the rest of the region on missiles. Those missiles, both the short range and the medium range missiles that we have, are absolutely critical to protect you as the leader of this revolution and to protect this country against the aggression and imperialism of the Great Satan. And that, by the way, also goes for their demand that we stop supporting freedom fighters and Shia brothers throughout the region. We should never turn our back on them. Now, just remember that the last time. It's true Israel hit us. It's true Trump hit us, and he may hit us again if we don't do a deal. But he is clearly nervous about that. He doesn't want a war. In fact, he made Bibi Netanyahu Stop. Last time, just stop cold. He turned the Israeli planes around because he was so nervous about a big war with Iran. And what was he nervous about? He was nervous that we were going to use our missiles to hit American bases throughout the region and to keep hitting Israel. And now my colleague wants you to maybe put the missiles on the table to give them up. That makes no sense. What Donald Trump wants is some big bombs to go off, and then he wants to end it. Just look at Venezuela. He didn't want to do big regime change in Venezuela, try to bring about some new government there. They went and got Maduro, and now they're perfectly happy to have the same dictatorial regime there that was there before. So, yeah, he might do strikes here, but we can absorb them. We can hit back like we did before. We can do that again. We can stand up and show that resisting this president is the best way to safeguard this revolution, not conceding to him. And by the way, we should just make sure, Mr. Supreme Leader, that we have you in a safe place. We can't make Maduro's mistake where he's sitting around in some palace they can fly into and grab or that they could come bomb you. So. So we really have to take care to have you hidden away safely. And right now, this whole thing, we don't even know where you are. We're doing this through secure communication so that even your closest allies and your closest advisors don't know what you're up to. So these are all the reasons why it makes no sense for us to make concessions, because he's just going to demand more. He may bomb anyway. Giving these things up is only going to lead to us getting dragged into further and further concessions. And at the end of the day, yeah, he may conduct a few more military strikes, but we've already learned he does not want to go all the way. And we are better off standing up and being the face of the resistance to him holding onto our strategy, waiting him out, getting to another administration down the road, that is not Donald Trump. That puts us in a better position to improve our strategic situation in the region and more broadly. And I think sending a message that you're going to cave at the point of a gun will only weaken you internally here in Iran, because I think our people will smell your weakness. So you also have to stand up and show that you are strong for them. So here's what I propose. Let's keep them talking. Let's drag this out. Let's have a negotiation that just unfolds over time where we keep saying maybe, maybe, maybe we can make some very small marginal concessions, maybe ship out a little in uranium. We've done that before, just a little bit, but none of this other stuff. And let's not make the major concessions that they seem to be demanding. I think we can wait these guys out. And even if they decide to strike us, I think we can absorb that and emerge on the other side of this stronger than we have. And in all of it, we will preserve our dignity, our pride, and we will preserve our revolution. And that is the most sacred thing for us to preserve. So that's why I think you should not go into these talks and make concessions.
- [41:52]
C
Well said. While I was listening to you, I kept thinking your argument is probably much more like what he is hearing in the room and what would be compelling to him if he did hear it. I think that is probably the direction they're going to end up going. And I think the outcome I'm warning about is maybe more likely than not in terms of what actually happens to them in the end. But. But I guess we'll see.
- [42:33]
B
Well, it's interesting, as I was preparing my side for this, I was reflecting that oftentimes when we do the red team, blue teams, the terms of the debate are kind of common across both arguments. We're trying to achieve some objective. This is a better way to do it or that's a better way to do it. The terms of this debate, it's like we're having two different debates. You're having a debate about kind of what makes sense through cold eyed objective reality of what Iran is facing right now. Now they're demonstrably weak. They can make some concessions that are kind of sleeves off their vest. They can essentially create a circumstance where they reduce the US Threat. All very logical. And a Western audience listening to this debate would hear your argument and think that makes a lot of sense. My argument is basically an argument from machismo and revolution and also from something else which is fundamental, deep structural mistrust of the United States that's been reinforced by the fact that we've previously pulled out of a nuclear deal. The fact that Trump has done this misdirection last year where he had the negotiation going and then greenlighted the 12 day war. So it will be interesting. I mean, I think your arguments are sufficiently real in the real world that the Supreme Leader is going to have to seriously consider them. And that's why I think he's actually allowed these negotiations to take place because he recognizes he's not in a great spot. But I think the arguments I made are definitely arguments that senior people around the Supreme Leader are putting forward. And they're touching kind of something deep in him that he just believes about the United States, about Iran, about the revolution. So it's hard to predict what's gonna happen in the talks. It's hard to predict what's gonna happen with the administration if the talks don't in fact, produce an outcome. But I do think that this red team, blue team actually has this special character to it that's quite interesting.
- [44:40]
C
Everything you said about the regime is true. There have been moments in the course of its sort of revolutionary history in which it has goes on a pragmatic path, grudgingly, always. But the end of the Iran Iraq war, where Ayatollah Khomeini at that time famously said he would, quote, unquote, drink from the poison chalice and actually end the conflict with his enemy, Iraq. The nuclear deal with Barack Obama, which I don't think Ayatollah Khamenei particularly wanted to do, certainly the irgc, I think, was urging him against doing it, and other forces of support with pragmatism inside the regime carry the day. The big difference this time, I think, is the point you made, that everybody inside the Iranian system who has been arguing for a pragmatic course has more or less been discredited by this point because the United States has, in their view, I think, in the Supreme Leader's view, probably taken advantage of Iran's openness and flexibility and pragmatism and then violated the agreements that have been made. So I think anybody who would be making the kind of argument that I was making is maybe not even in the room anymore for these discussions because their vision of the world and their vision of Iran's role in the region has been so badly discredited by the events of the last few years.
- [46:07]
B
What's interesting, John, about whether there's someone in the room laying out your argument, the most likely candidate for it would probably be Abbas Arakchee, the Foreign Minister who's actually leading the talks in Oman. You and I both know him, both spent a lot of time in rooms with him as he was participating in the negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal back during the Obama administration. He's a real professional diplomat. He's a dyed in the wool Iranian revolutionary as well. But he definitely approaches things from the point of view of logic, rationality, kind of cold blooded calculus. And I'm curious as to whether he's more in the camp of revolutionary zeal or more in the camp of rational compromise. Right now, in terms of his mindset, we have no insight into that because we haven't seen him in quite a long time. And of course, his position within the system has changed and the system itself has changed over the course of the last several years. So he will be an interesting figure to watch. Iraqi and every time I see him on tv, I think back to those days where he was honestly one of the main driving forces, along with the Foreign Minister Zarif around, kind of carrying the Iranian side of the negotiation, and is a formidable counterpart, someone who is a very serious, capable, intelligent diplomat who just happens to work for a pretty terrible regime, a regime that we should just remind listeners before we finish, executed this absolutely brutal and massive crackdown. And with each week that passes, we've talked about this before, the death toll seems to rise. And the sheer shocking scope of what they did to stamp out the protests in the streets a couple of weeks ago, really quite striking. And that should not be too far from our minds as we watch what unfolds here. Because of course, what kicked all this off was Donald Trump saying, go out in the street and protest because help is on the way. And of course, that's still kind of hanging out there even as we're getting into these nuclear talks.
- [48:27]
C
Right. And for the reason you just, just articulated, this is not a sort of a free shot for President Trump should he choose not to take military strikes. There are going to be extremely motivated, extremely aggrieved voices inside the United States who believe that he teed up, essentially created motivation or enhanced the motivation of protesters to go further, to do more, to risk their lives. Because he kept saying, as we've discussed, help is on the way. If any protesters are harmed or killed, the United States will take action to defend them, punish the regime for doing that. Obviously, there has been this massive death toll, and credibility is not always the greatest reason to determine U.S. foreign policy action. We've faced these kinds of choices in the past as well. But President Trump did choose to draw a sort of a red line here, and it will, I think, impact the rest of his admin, obviously, no matter what he does. But certainly if he chooses not to go forward with strikes, including, by the way, not to make this about politics, but there is a significant diaspora community in the United States, I think, that has watched with horror what Iran has done to its own people that is counting on, or at least was counting on President Trump to make good on his word. And so either course of action has some peril associated with it. Because the other thing we should not leave this conversation without saying is I think we have developed in this country a bit of a false sense of security about our ability to use military force without consequences for us. Just because these operations that President Trump has ordered have gone from a military perspective so well up till now, the bombing of Iran, which was executed basically flawlessly last summer, the operation to abduct Maduro and bring him to justice. But there is no guarantee that that will continue to be the case. And the Maduro operation was extremely high risk. You and I have both written about that, talked about that Iran could, should it choose to do real harm to US Interests, US Personnel in the region in retaliation for a US Strike. And while we have an ability to defend ourselves that is better than any other country on earth, it is not flawless. And so there could be, there could be significant consequences should he choose military action in this case.
- [50:58]
B
Very well said and a good reminder of the stakes and the risks here. And we will now watch how things unfold in the days to come. We will also watch the Olympics and we will light a candle, John, for your voice in hopes that it returns to full strength for next week's episode. That's all for today. Hey, we'll be back next week with a new episode of the Long Game. In the meantime, send us your questions and comments@long gameoxmedia.com and find us on substack@staytuned.substack.com the links are in the show notes.
- [51:41]
C
That's it for this episode of the Long Game.
- [51:43]
B
If you like the show, please follow, share with friends and leave a review. It really helps listeners.
- [51:49]
C
Find us for updates and more analysis in your inbox. Join the community@staytuned.substack.com the long game is.
- [51:57]
B
A Vox Media podcast Network Production Executive Producer Tamara Sepper Lead Editorial Producer Jennifer Indig Deputy Editor Celine Rohr Senior Producer.
- [52:07]
C
Matthew Billy Video producers Nat Wiener and.
- [52:10]
B
Adam Harris Supervising Producer Jake Kaplan Associate Producer Claudia Hernandez Marketing Manager Leanna Greenway.
- [52:18]
C
Music is by Nat Weiner.
- [52:20]
B
We're your hosts, John Finer and Jake Sullivan. Thanks for listening.
- [52:30]
D
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- [52:58]
C
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