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- [00:01]
Podcast Narrator
From globalization to innovation sustainability to market volatility, there's always more than one side to a story. Explore different perspectives on today's most important business and economic issues with the Flipside podcast from Barclays Investment Bank. Hear two research analysts in a lively debate and get insights from every angle. To further inform your view, listen to the Flipside on your favorite platform.
- [00:26]
Philanthropy Advertiser
Then I thought, what if I've scaled businesses? What if I scaled my philanthropy? What if I did as much in one year as I've done in my whole life?
- [00:33]
Creative Planning Advertiser
See how your wealth could have even greater meaning@creativeplanning.com impact.
- [00:42]
Manveen Rana
From the Times and the Sunday Times.
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Podcast Host (Interviewer)
This is the story.
- [00:46]
Manveen Rana
I'm Manveen Rana.
- [00:50]
Donald Trump (Voice Clip)
A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran.
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Manveen Rana
On February 28, President Trump appeared wearing a white baseball cap emblazoned with the letters usa. He stood behind a podium, announcing the start of the war.
- [01:12]
Donald Trump (Voice Clip)
We are going to destroy their missiles and raise their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally again obliterated.
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Podcast Host (Interviewer)
It would take four to six weeks, he said.
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Manveen Rana
But these were the bold aims behind Operation Epic Fury.
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Donald Trump (Voice Clip)
We're going to annihilate their navy. We are going to ensure that the region's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world, and we will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.
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Manveen Rana
More than three months later, and Operation
- [01:48]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
Epic Fury looks more like an epic fail.
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Manveen Rana
The Iranian regime is still standing, and the US And Iran are trapped in a quagmire of peace negotiations with numerous false storms but no real end in sight.
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Creative Planning Advertiser
We think that we've made a lot of progress. We think the Iranians want to make a deal. I think we've hit a wall when it comes to negotiations.
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Michael Stevens
Confused?
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Podcast Host (Interviewer)
You're not alone.
- [02:14]
Manveen Rana
On Saturday, Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social site that a deal was close and details would be released shortly. But by Sunday, he was rowing back, saying he was in no hurry to strike a deal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was keen to downplay expectations.
- [02:33]
Michael Stevens
We're still a work in progress, as the president said. He's not in a hurry.
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Aura Advertiser
He's not going to make a bad deal.
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Manveen Rana
A military advisor to Iran's supreme leader was even more damning about negotiation.
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Creative Planning Advertiser
The Islamic Republic has put the least costly path before you. The Islamic Republic is telling you that if you continue the war, we will make the American people miserable and the American economy miserable.
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Manveen Rana
So what is happening in those peace negotiations? What are the sticking points and is a deal even possible? And has this become a war that President Trump can't win? The story today, Iran, how Trump lost the art of the deal.
- [03:29]
Michael Stevens
I think there's a bit of fatigue setting in at the moment. There's certainly a sense that this could have been and should have been solved much earlier than it has been. And there's confusion as to how the negotiations are playing out.
- [03:43]
Manveen Rana
That's Michael Stevens, a senior associate fellow at RAND Europe and Rusi, and an expert on security and trade in the Middle East.
- [03:51]
Michael Stevens
The fact that we're even at this place three months in, I think, is already a sign that semi permanent damage has been done. Going to be difficult to, I think, undo some of the changes in perception about the region's stability, profitability, the lack of planning for, you know, war scenarios. If it comes to logistics and supply lines for oil, for gas, for passenger routes. There's all sorts of questions which have come to play that I think the Gulf states in particular have tried to mitigate. But actually the damage is very obvious at this point.
- [04:26]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
Michael, as you say, the damage is already done. Over the weekend, there was hope that a peace deal might be about to be negotiated. There've been very contrary statements coming out of the White House. We're still not quite sure where we stand. And then today, Tuesday, that's when we're recording. We woke up to the news that there had been US Defensive strikes, we're told, in southern Iran. What do we know about those strikes and why they happened?
- [04:50]
Michael Stevens
Obviously, the context in which these recent strikes have happened is important because we are in the middle of what appear to be not final status negotiations, but certainly negotiations are well down the road and both sides are beginning to build consensus around a number of important points. And then all of a sudden, we've had this sort of flash of violence. The Americans have more or less justified these airstrikes as defensive because they involved irgc, that's the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, which would have been a direct threat to their shipping. So the Americans have a couple of dozen ships in the region now enforcing this blockade on top of Iran's block. And I think there is a reasonable case to say that people laying mines in the pathway of your ships is a threat and needs to be dealt with. So on that sort of narrow angle, I can see why the Americans felt that they needed to take action. There are some rumours that in response, a Reaper drone or an MQ9, which is an American sort of hunter killer drone, was shot down this morning by the Iranians again. Look, the Iranians may have just simply been signaling displeasure. Does it mean that we're going to slide into all out war? I suspect not, but let's wait and see how things develop over the next 24 hours. I think this might be an isolated incident for now.
- [06:07]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
We are being told that the ceasefire is still in place despite those attacks. This comes, though, a week after President Trump said that he was about to attack Iran and had decided to hold off on a whole new raft of attacks that he had planned because he felt a deal was in the offing. Should we see this with the negotiations as a backdrop? Is this also a reminder to Iran that if negotiations don't progress, there are other options?
- [06:34]
Michael Stevens
There are other options. And the military option has always been, or at least the resumption of the military option has always been a threat that could be carried out. I have suspected that the longer this ceasefire has gone on and the more it's been extended, the less likely that is. I get the sense that the more that this drags out, the clearer it is to me that President Trump doesn't want to go back to war. So it didn't surprise me that his Truth Social account then came out and said, you know, at the request of the Qatari and the Emirati emirs, I have, you know, gracefully stood down and given more time. I think it was, it was pretty inevitable.
- [07:08]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
Talk us through that, because it does feel like through the course of the weekend, we heard a peace deal was in sight about to be signed, and then President Trump saying he didn't want to rush into it, sending pictures of the American bombers. Where are we? Are negotiations going?
- [07:23]
Michael Stevens
Well, in terms of the quiet cooperation that's starting to build on a number of fronts, I think, and the Iranians have actually admitted this, that they have reached agreement on several issues. They've not been specific about what those issues are. And that's fair enough, because when you're in the middle of a negotiation, you don't want to sort of prejudice the progress that you've made. On top of that, you have this Truth Social account, which I think I've got to the point three months in, where it's a very dangerous thing to be following that Twitter account or Truth Social account because it contradicts itself multiple times a day. And if you look at the subtext of what he's saying in most of these tweets is that they are still talking. And I've cautioned people in the region who tend to, I'm Afraid to say, follow the kind of roller coaster and the panic and the doom and the depression and the elation and just said, it is a bit. And, you know, at some point it becomes the boy who cried wolf. My view is that he is trying to buy time for a deal and has always been trying to buy time for a deal. Yes. He retains the ability to escalate should he want. The problem is that Trump tends to draw disproportionate attention to issues in the negotiations which the Iranians pick up on and then use as leverage back against him. Right. So the more that Trump talks about highly enriched uranium, the more the Iranians go, oh, well, that's in our good graces to give. So we're going to charge a higher price for that because we know Trump thinks it's important. So we've definitely, I think, you know, in the expert community, been discussing this about how the Iranians watch that True Social account and they adapt accordingly.
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Podcast Host (Interviewer)
That's interesting. So they're basically using that as their research for negotiations to work out which bits Donald Trump really cares about.
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Manveen Rana
And we should say, before we plow into the detail of what might be
- [09:05]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
negotiated in this deal, this is just an interim deal. This isn't a final end to the war, this is just an attempt to extend the ceasefire for a while.
- [09:14]
Michael Stevens
Correct. And whether that's 30 days or 60 days, again, there are just so many known unknowns or unknown unknowns. And, you know, we're having talks about talks which I just find incredibly frustrating. Last time you and I talked, we discussed the point about we're trying to solve a problem which didn't exist prior to the conflict beginning. And now what we're doing is creating a kind of subset of talks about a ceasefire designed to solve that secondary problem, whilst at the same time trying to deal with the primary issue that's
- [09:43]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
the closure of the Strait of Warming.
- [09:44]
Michael Stevens
Correct. And at the same time, they're then trying to deal with this issue of the highly enriched uranium and the sanctions relief, which was the kind of premise of the JCPOA, which was the Iran nuclear deal from 2015 that Trump objected to. So essentially, you've got got two separate tracks happening at the same time, which both threaten to derail the other track. And this is where I think Trump's Truth Social account makes it very difficult for his negotiators because it's difficult for them to know what their end point is, what's the end destination they're trying to reach and how do we get there when at Some point, Trump says, the thing that we felt was going to be negotiated later is actually the most important thing that needs to be negotiated now. And it certainly makes it difficult for them to sequence the way in which they come to agreements on various. Various points and then can build on those agreements to both build trust and then move on to the next final status issues.
- [10:37]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
So, basically, the Iran nuclear deal, one of the most complex, difficult deals to reach over quite a long period of time. Donald Trump didn't think it was good enough. You think the talks he's in now are more complicated, much more complicated than that, because you have a second track of these problems that didn't even exist back in 2015 when Barack Obama was dealing with them.
- [10:58]
Michael Stevens
They're not as technically complicated in the sense that you're not talking about numbers of centrifuges spinning. You're not talking about enforcement of enrichment protocols in terms of allowing inspectors in. You know, what. What aspects of Iran's nuclear program can function and what can't, and how do we monitor that? Those aspects are gone partly because the sites have been blown up, but that highly enriched uranium element is still there. And that is a complex deal because essentially the Iranians enriched that uranium to give them leverage that they now have today. It was always a bargaining chip for them to essentially hang over the US And Israel and say, well, you. We could. So what are you going to give us in return? So that aspect remains from 2015, except it's far more complex because this is a lot more highly enriched uranium. And the main criticism of 2015, which I have some sympathy for, is that it sort of totally ignored Iran's kind of duplicitous activities in the region where they would say, you know, we're not doing anything, we're just defending ourselves. Meanwhile, they were funding militias left, right and center. As you know, some of these militias were pretty unpleasant people committing war crimes and backing Bashar al Assad, for example. In Syria, those militias are sort of gone. But now you have a region which has been beset by war for nearly three years where the dynamics and the understandings of kind of the state structures are coming into question. Regional alliances are coming into question. The Gulf states don't know whether to pitch west or east. They're divided amongst themselves. These are far more complicated because there is no consensus. In some ways, what you had in 2015 was America and the Europeans had consensus about the JCPOA and Israel, and the Gulf states didn't. So you could see the two very clear camps now. The Gulf states are all over the place. They don't have a unified position on anything. You have kind of an alliance between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan. Then you have the uae, Israel alliance, which is building up. No one seems to know what their preferred goals are and they work counter to each other. That's very difficult to solve because everybody wants something different from this.
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Podcast Host (Interviewer)
Yeah. So getting agreement around the region is already looking near impossible.
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Michael Stevens
I'm gonna say impossible.
- [13:07]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
Yeah. In terms of the actual what's on the table, you mentioned the enriched uranium. That's clearly for the Iranians. That's their biggest bargaining chip. Talk us through what America wants from this deal. What are their red lines?
- [13:21]
Michael Stevens
It apparently is the highly enriched uranium. That's the most important aspect. I mean, Trump has definitely over the last two to three weeks mentioned that stopp Iran's nuclear weapons program or its potential to gain nuclear weapons is the main issue that he cares about.
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Donald Trump (Voice Clip)
The world's number one state sponsor of terror will never have a nuclear weapon. Oh, and they won't. They will never have a nuclear weapon. I'm sure you.
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Michael Stevens
I'm sure you know that My take on this is that they would like to see all highly enriched uranium out of the country. Whether they reprocess it or someone else does, that's another matter.
- [13:55]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
But actually physically taken out of the country, because that is a bone of contention.
- [13:59]
Michael Stevens
No, I think they would physically want it out, removed completely. They definitely would not want any type of facility to exist which allowed Iran to rebuild that heu. Perhaps they could have an agreement about the Basheh nuclear facility, which is a civilian nuclear power plant on the shore of the Persian Gulf where low enriched uranium was fed to that plant from an external source, for example, or what you could have is a highly monitored domestic enrichment facility that only produced, let's say, 3% low enriched uranium. So that's. That's very clear. They just do not allow that 60% highly enriched uranium to remain on Iranian soil. Secondly, I think what they would like is some sort of agreement whereby Israel was not threatened existentially, whether that's with missiles or drones. Same with the Gulf states. Lebanon, I think, is a more tricky part of the puzzle, and I don't think it's a priority for the U.S.
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Podcast Host (Interviewer)
actually, they have mentioned it in their peace memorandum, but that seems to be a much harder country for them to be able to exercise any control over.
- [15:02]
Michael Stevens
It does. And frankly, it puts them at odds with the Israelis, who I just don't think have a timeline for Lebanon that looks Anything like President Trump's. And obviously Iran has permanent interests in Lebanon as well. So that Israeli Iranian angle that is almost existential for both is kind of a tertiary issue, I think, for the Americans that they'd rather not deal with. Last but not least, what they would like is the Iranian regime to commit to some sort of regional agreement, whether that is the Saudi floated non aggression pact or whatever it is, whereby Iran commits to not supporting offensive proxy networks, establishing bases for forward operating drone or missile strikes against Arab countries. And if Iran can't commit to that, I don't think the Americans can walk away and say they got a good deal.
- [15:51]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
On top of that, those would have been the conditions they were looking for if they were coming up with this treaty four months ago. On top of that, they got the straight of Hormuz.
- [16:02]
Michael Stevens
Well, yes, that's probably the big one, isn't it? The fact that this was never an issue on 27 February, but now is kind of the world's key issue dealing with Hormuz, especially given the way that the Iranians are now pitching their. What's it called, the Persian Gulf Hormuz Strait authority, which is essentially their posh word for tolbooth.
- [16:24]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
This would be in conjunction with Oman.
- [16:26]
Michael Stevens
Correct. They've built their friendship with Oman again, despite the fact that they actually did hit them a couple of times. This is a very complex problem because I think Iran knows that it's got the majority of the cards on this. The fact that the Americans cannot open this by force, so they blockade the blockade, play for time, and hope that Iran just gives up because it's losing $450 million a day of lost revenue from shipping that's not able to leave its shores. But Iran, I think, has realized that it's got a little bit more time in the bag. And there is urgency amongst American allies and also domestically in the United States to get this solved. And here, Iran loves this. It can spot the disagreements opening up in the US it loves wedge issues. It loves to create them. So it sees the hawks to the right of Trump, criticizing him for giving too much in return to open the Hormuz. And then of course, you've got the guys on the sort of liberal end of the spectrum criticizing Trump for doing this in the first place. And Iran is able to play these wedges as it wishes and introduce either through its social media trolling or through the way in which it re engineers its positions on Hormuz to create further gaps in the system, which weakens Trump even more. So this has become really, I think, a 50 ton weight around Trump's neck. And it's, I think, gone from being kind of a secondary objective to the one in which I think more than the nuclear issue, Trump will be judged as a good negotiator, a good deal maker, a president that's able to solve the region's problems quickly and parsimoniously. As yet, we're still in that stalemate. And it looks to me like Iran is trying to extract more concessions from the Americans in terms of recognizing its legitimate authority and interests on the homosexual.
- [18:18]
Manveen Rana
On that we've talked about the deal
- [18:20]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
from the American side, what they need for this to be seen as a success. Talk to me about the Iranians. What are the conditions that most matter to them?
- [18:28]
Michael Stevens
Sanctions relief for sure. For sure. There's obviously several rounds of sanctions based on Iranian exports to do with hydrocarbons, but also essential materials that Iran exports that have been taken off the table since Trump scrapped the JCPOA and was, at the end of 2018, Obama's Iran nuclear deal. Yep. And the other problem were things like dual use technologies which were then banned. So Iran then couldn't service its civilian jetliners because certain technologies and certain materials were not allowed in large quantities into the country, which then has knock on effects.
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Podcast Host (Interviewer)
So they're sanctioned because they could potentially be used for weapons or for the military.
- [19:09]
Michael Stevens
Correct.
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Podcast Host (Interviewer)
But it also means you now can't use them for civilian airlines.
- [19:13]
Michael Stevens
Yeah, the things that you need to to run a country, essentially. And then of course, it's. Iran is still off the swift credit system or transfer system, which means it has not got access to dollars. It needs access to dollars to prop up what is a rapidly inflating currency. And we know, of course, that their inflation levels are at 70%, which is. Well, it's very, very difficult to imagine a stable future for Iran's people or its economy when your inflation is at 70% and growing. So I would say their key interests are economic. But, you know, we've alluded to this before. Lebanon is not unimportant. You know, they want to see a resolution in Lebanon that maintains some modicum of power for Hezbollah and to keep Israel from storming north and destroying this ally that they've built since 1982. So that, to me is pretty key.
- [20:01]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
They've also thrown in. Is this just a negotiating tactic where you throw more on the table so that it can look like you've compromised when you don't get it, or are they very serious about wanting US Bases in the region to be shut down.
- [20:13]
Michael Stevens
This is a really interesting question. I think they know it probably won't happen today and certainly wouldn't happen tomorrow either. But it's raising the utility of these bases consistently that makes you wonder whether we're entering a world in which the US forward operating footprint in the Gulf is starting to be viewed by all sides as a strategic burden. What Iran is doing with this is very clever. It's dropping the kind of pill into the water and then just watching it fizz and seeing what the reactions look like. And they've got some reactions. You have Emirati commentators who directly question the strategic value of these bases. In Saudi Arabia, the same thing has happened both in the English language and the Arabic language. So Iran, by constantly bringing this point up and saying, you know, it's really interesting, isn't it? You have all these bases, they're there to protect you. And did they protect you? No, they didn't. In fact, they're the very reason we attacked you and then just let it percolate. So will they get their dream? No. But if there is an agreement in 15 years time where the US volunteers to leave, much like how the UK left in 71, 72, Iran gets its strategic victory, doesn't it? So don't measure this in terms of whether the stock market goes up or down or oil prices go up or down like President Trump does. But think of this as the beginning of a new era of conversations where US power is not viewed as the guarantee that it once was.
- [21:53]
Manveen Rana
Coming up with no seat at the table, what role will Israel play in this deal? And will it lose America friends across the region? That's in just a moment.
- [22:10]
Philanthropy Advertiser
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- [22:17]
Creative Planning Advertiser
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- [22:22]
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- [23:30]
Tom Clark
Who won?
- [23:31]
Michael Stevens
How did they play?
- [23:32]
Tom Clark
What was wonderful, what was woeful, and why? I'm Tom Clark and on the Game Football podcast we answer all of that, plus provide detailed analysis of the tactical trends on the pitch and the financial situations off it. I'm joined by former footballers as well as reporters and columnists from the Times and Sunday Times. We're here twice a week and for this summer's World cup we'll bring you daily shows with our team covering every inch of the tournament. Find the Game wherever you get your podcasts.
- [24:11]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
Michael, you describe brilliantly how the Iranians are managing these negotiations, creating wedge issues which play out in America and across the American political spectrum, but also across the region. You described it as throwing a pill into the water and watching it fizz. So let's look at how these talks are working out across the Middle East. Where is Israel in all of this?
- [24:36]
Michael Stevens
I wouldn't quite put them in the passenger category like I do the Gulf states, but they're not driving the train either. And I think Benjamin Netanyahu, if you had said to him three months ago that you are not going to be shaping the end game, I think he would have told you that's, that's not a result I would want or have preferred. Look, it's interesting that the Israelis have had direct conversations between Netanyahu and Trump on the 19th and the 23rd of this month. So they are talking regularly. Netanyahu is making Trump aware of his preferences and it has been reported that the call between them on the 23rd was deeply frustrating for the Israelis. It was kind of hair pulling moments where Trump was talking about making large scale concessions to the Iranians, that Netanyahu was sort of going, oh my God, what is going on here? But that's your problem, Bibi. You hitched your wagon to Galloping Gertie and now you're worrying about the fact that you can't predict where it's going. It's fascinating because Netanyahu was prime minister during Trump 1. He knows how Trump operates. He knows the way he thinks and for some reason, despite all those lessons that Netanyahu learned, he still thought that he could get a solid strategic end game from this presidency and is frustrated and clearly paying a bit of a political price internally for it. Because what's happening is that Israeli politicians to his left and right are now outmaneuvering him and saying, well, you didn't really know what you were doing with this war, did you? You've actually cost Israel a lot in terms of its political capital in the United States. And strategically, we've not gained a lot. So what kind of prime minister are you? And so, you know, he's really got himself stuck in a jam. Elections are going to be here by October, so his political timeline is even shorter than Donald Trump's, in which any sort of negative resolution to this conflict he's gonna pay for. And the funny thing about this is if it does go well, and it's not going to, but if it did, he wouldn't get much of an upswing from it. So I'm starting to wonder why he was so keen to do it now and why he thought that the timelines were in his favor.
- [26:52]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
Some people have described Pakistan as the great winner from this war because they've become such a key power broker in trying to negotiate between the two sides. The Qataris still have a role in all of that. And yet many of these allies of America were stunned in the last few days when they were suddenly told Turkey, Saudi Arabia, that they would now have to join the Abraham Accords. Take us back for a start. Just remind us what the Abraham Accords are and who's already signed up.
- [27:25]
Michael Stevens
Okay, so the Abraham Accords were deals signed between Israel and a number of Arab countries, most importantly the uae, but also Morocco and Bahra, that essentially flipped the logic of peacemaking between Israel and its neighbors on its head and essentially required no land for peace, as happened between Egypt and Israel in 1979. And it required no movement on the Palestinian question, as occurred between Jordan and Israel in 1994. What essentially became the norm was that the UAE said, We will make peace with you. We will recognize you, we will recognize your right to be in the region, we recognize the position of Judaism in the Arabian Peninsula, and we will move towards full relationships, tourism, investment, in each other's economies.
- [28:10]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
So they basically cemented economic ties and trade, but really to preserve the status quo. There was no great movement in terms of Palestinian sovereignty or any of the issues that normally a lot of the Arab neighbours had worried about. Given that, how will that have Gone down. When President Trump turned around and told these allies it was now mandatory pretty badly.
- [28:35]
Michael Stevens
The reporting from the call was that Donald Trump was met by collective silence. I think partly because everyone was digesting, what on earth are we supposed to say to this? And for context for your listeners, a number of important Arab leaders were on the call, all at the same time with President Trump, and every single one of them was silent, presumably repeating to their advisor, is he seriously asking us to do this? And I have, obviously. In fact, I didn't actually have to make phone calls to the region to find out. People just messaged me going, what on earth is going wrong? Literally, I got one saying, is he mad? Does he even know what our strategic environment looks like today? There's no way we can do this.
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Podcast Host (Interviewer)
Apparently on the call, the silence was followed by Donald Trump saying, are you still there?
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Michael Stevens
Amazing, isn't it? It's the worst thing in any phone call you're ever. Are you still there? Look, here's what I think has happened. I think Donald Trump. Trump realizes this is a strategic card to play, a maximalist card to get a minimal concession. The problem is this is. I hate to say this, but it's not a New York real estate deal. This is about pride. This is about strategic deterrence. This is about a hundred years of conflict. This is about concessions made that didn't work. This is about the legitimacy of the Al Saud, right, as the custodians of the holy places of Islam. This is not, not a business deal where you barter back and forward.
- [30:02]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
I mean, for many of these leaders on that call, they have to worry about their own populations. They can't make a move that will lead to a revolution in their own country because people would be so against it. What does that do for President Trump and these allies who he's relied on during this war? He sort of needs for negotiations, he needs for his relationships in the region. How much tension does that create?
- [30:26]
Michael Stevens
Look, there's a certain give and take with Trump. Arab leaders accept that he may go off script, he may say things that offend them. And they know, of course, that the shoe is not on their foot. They are not the world's most powerful military or the most powerful economy, and President Trump is in control of both. So they, to some extent, do have to at least listen to what he asks and reflect those preferences. But clearly, it's not been a good six months for the president in terms of his relationships in the region. I think what's important to note, President Trump in both of his terms in office, chose to make his first foreign visit to the Gulf states. And in both times, they made significant financial commitments to him, and you could probably say to his family personally as well, which would have been presented by Trump as a political win, so that the Arab states were, or at least the Gulf Arab states were willing to give him that political win, that economic win. And this time around, I think they're now asking, well, I'm not really sure what we got for that. What was the strategic improvement in our situation that emerged as a result of announcing trillions of dollars of deals, giving him a free passenger jet? These things haven't really paid off. And I think that going back to that conversation we had about US Bases, the fact that that conversation is being allowed to. To happen is a reflection of the fact that the US Is just not seen as a traditional and reliable partner. And that is reflected by the president's inconsistencies.
- [31:58]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
When we look back on this, however
- [32:00]
Manveen Rana
soon they come up with a deal,
- [32:02]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
whether it's an interim deal, a final deal, will we see this as a moment of strategic failure for America? I think Phillips o', Brien, great defense analyst, has described it as the quickest defeat in U.S. history.
- [32:17]
Michael Stevens
I don't think it's a defeat. You know, the US hasn't lost the war. In fact, you know, militarily, it massively outperformed Iran and destroyed a lot of its military equipment and killed many of its leaders in very short order. But in terms of strategic wins, no, this is not a strategic win for the United States. And you can dress it up however you want it. I don't see how the US has benefited. Tensions between the US And Europe have increased as a result of this conflict. US Security guarantees are being questioned. The role of China as a kind of force for stability in the region is becoming more talked about. So, no, we haven't seen a progression in US Security preferences at all. And in some ways, Trump's inconsistency, his inability to get quick deals done, is undermining his own position and his own authority. So I think absolutely, Trump's authority is lacking. I would not question the US Military's strategic and tactical abilities. I think there you have to divorce the political from what it's able to do on the battlefield, which remains far above and beyond what anyone else is capable of doing on the planet and has repeatedly been shown from how they extradited Maduro in January from Venezuela to when they were able to target Iran's leaders in quick orders. So let's you know, try not to, to criticize everything, but I'm definitely of the opinion that the US Is on the back foot here and will continue to be. And I suspect how this will play out. It's not just in the gas prices and in the fact that US inflation has gone up 50%, all of which are important. But it will be at the midterms where his allies are going to get a shellacking, to use the Obama phrase, to the point where even the Senate might come into play for the Democrats. That's how you measure political success.
- [34:11]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
And at the end of this, and it has been a costly war for all sides, including the US at the end of this, when we do get a deal, do you think it'll be any better than the jcpoa, Obama's Iran nuclear deal? And do you think it'll be any better than the deal that was on the table the day before the war broke out?
- [34:30]
Michael Stevens
No, it won't be better. And it won't be better for one simple reason, which is that the, the sacred cow of the Strait of Hormuz has been kind of slaughtered. Iran has now shown that no matter what happens with regards to all of these agreements that it could or couldn't sign, or the billions of dollars it may get hold of the normalization process between the Arab states and Israel, that Iran can control the Strait of Hormuz and the world's most powerful country can do nothing about it. So once you've kind of broken that norm, you can't put it back in the box and pretend that it never happened. My worry is that that then sets a precedent for all sorts of other questions in the world, whether that be Taiwan or Eastern Europe or whatever, where people feel that with the United States they can just push the envelope a little bit further. And then you start to see the global policeman's ability to police breaking down. Then you start to get multiple wars, and then you start to get, get conditions for world wars. So that is my really, really big concern. Let's come back to the kind of micro Middle east part of it. My view is that you could sign the most brilliant deal you wanted at this point, and everybody will turn around and go, what on earth was that for? Why did we just go through this? If there was a deal on the table on 27 February, why didn't we take it? If all that was lost, whether that's financially, whether that's reputationally, whether that's the disruption to civilian flights in the Gulf, whether that's the perception of the Middle east as a permanently unstable region. What was it for? And you already hear people say this quite regularly now, so I'm afraid it's a bit, bit late for a good deal.
- [36:26]
Manveen Rana
That was Michael Stevens, a senior associate fellow at RUSI. The producers today were Sophie McNulty and Michaela Arneson. The executive producer was Kate Lamball and sound design and theme composition were by Malicetto. If you'd like to get in touch with us, do drop us a line to the story@thetimes.com thanks for listening.
- [36:45]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
We'll be back tomorrow.
- [37:24]
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