Speaker unverified: belief

Transcript context

…So it’s a big risk is your case. So here’s some practical recommendations that I think the United States should follow. I think the first is get the Iranians back to Oman, negotiate with them and do a deal. Again, the deal has to be no enrichment full dismantlement. I think for the reasons we talked about today, Scott and I passionately disagreed, but that’s fine. This is a reasonable debate. Neither of us is crazy. Neither of us is irrational. It is, what would it take to get a deal with Iran? I’d say, this is the deal. This has to be our red line. Scott disagrees. That’s fine, but we got to get a deal. In that deal, we got to provide them financial incentives. We’re going to have to lift a certain number of sanctions because they’re going to have to get something in return. We can argue about exactly how much, but I think our opening negotiating position is no-sanctions relief. And then we’ll get negotiated down from that. Right? I think a lot of this is about how do you position yourself for negotiation? How do you come in with leverage? And then how do you find areas of compromise where you satisfy your objectives? One is Oman. Two is the credible threat of military force needs to remain, right? Khamenei needs to understand that the United States of America and Israel will use military force to stop him from developing nuclear weapons. If he didn’t believe that before, 12 days ago, he now believes that. And I think that’s the credibility of that military force has to be maintained in order to ensure that he does not break out or sneak out to a nuclear weapon. I think that’s absolutely critical. Third is I think we have to reach agreements with all the other countries in the Middle East to say, “Hey, listen, we’re demanding zero enrichment and full dismantlement from the Iranians. You don’t get enrichment. And you don’t get a nuclear program that is capable of developing nuclear weapons. Our gold standard is the American standard.” Civilian nuclear energy, like 23 countries, no enrichment in reprocess. We should be consistent. We should be consistent, not just with American allies, but also very clear with American enemies. I think that’s the third important thing we do. Fourth is I think it’s really important that we find some accommodation between the Israelis and the Palestinians. We can go down many rabbit holes on that, but I think that lays the predicate for a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal that then brings in multiple Arab countries and Muslim countries. And finally, is we talked about the Abraham Accords. I think we need to start thinking about what do the Cyrus Accords look like, right? Cyrus was the great Persian king who, by the way, brought the Jews back from the diaspora to Jerusalem. And Cyrus Accords would be, “Let’s find an agreement between the United States and Israel and Iran.” That would be a remarkable transformation in the region if we could actually do that. to Jerusalem. And Cyrus Accords would be, “Let’s find an agreement between the United States and Israel and Iran.” That would be a remarkable transformation in the region if we could actually do that. So imagine a Middle East, and again, I know this sounds fanciful. But I think this is what Trump has in mind when he starts to talk about the things you’re seeing in these Truth posts. Is actually a Middle East that can be fundamentally transformed where we actually do bring peace between Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the rest of these countries. I, by the way, completely agree with you on Syria. The idea that we are trusting a former Al-Qaeda ISIS jihadist to rule Syria, I think is a big bet President Trump has made. He’s made it on the advice of MBS. We’ll see how that transforms or transpires, and see if Syria is transformed. But the notion that somehow we should just be rolling the dice, lifting all the sanctions, and taking this former Al-Qaeda jihadist at his word is a big bet. If we got the bet right, that is actually a remarkable occurrence because now all of a sudden Syria and Lebanon are brought into this Abraham Accords, Cyrus Accords structure. And then we actually have what I think all three of us want is peace in the Middle East, stability in the Middle East. I don’t think we need democracy in the Middle East. I think if the Middle East looked like the UAE, that’d be a pretty good Middle East. I think we’d all be pretty comfortable with that if that kind of stability and prosperity. And ultimately, you could put these countries on a pathway to greater democracy. The way that we did during the Cold War where countries like Taiwan and South Korea that were military dictatorships ended up becoming pro-Western democracy. So that’s, stepping back, maybe a little bit Pollyannish. But I think we should also always keep in mind what a potential vision for peace could look like.…

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