Middle East Roundtable: As the Dust Settles.

Hello and welcome to the Middle East Roundtable here at Fronts.co. I am Evan Maloney. I am here with

Kyle Moran. I'm a staff writer here with Warfronts. And Wilfred Miner, Africa correspondent for all things Fronts.co related.

Gentlemen, it has been another long, long weekend of covering what's happening in Iran. As usual, the peace talks were supposed to be the main talking point heading into this weekend and into this week. But Iran, at some point, the RGC Navy decided that it did not want ships using the Omani channel on the Strait of Hormuz.

They would rather ships use the Iranian path on the Strait of Hormuz. And to implement that, to force ships to adhere to that, a drone struck a commercial ship. And that set off a chain of escalatory strikes between the U.S. and Iran that lasted throughout the weekend.

Luckily, it did not affect any stock prices. And by Monday, before the open of business, both sides were back to the table. Both sides seemed to be talking again.

But that series of escalatory strikes just showed how fragile the peace deal between the two nations continues to be. It's a very delicate situation. And that's where we are at on Wednesday as we record this.

Kyle? Yeah, certainly. It has been an eventful last week or so.

So, in particular, the back-and-forth shooting dominated headlines over the weekend. And interestingly, the talks that were threatened to be cancelled do appear to be happening to some extent as we speak today, here on Wednesday.

But overall, I do have to question whether or not we're ever going to see something that actually takes part from these nuclear talks.

Because, from my understanding, they're not even discussing nukes today. They're discussing freedom of navigation because of what's going on in the street of Hormuz.

Now, that sort of just undermines the entire premise of the goal of the MOU, which was to reopen Hormuz in the first place, as well as to set up a series of ongoing nuclear discussions that were supposed to wrap up within 60 days, although they could be indefinitely extended, should both sides agree.

And as I put in our Monday update there, we're going to take the over on the 60. And I think I speak for all three of us here when I say that one. Agreed.

We're definitely going to take the over on the 60 because the simple fact that Iran has managed to make the street of Hormuz an equivalent issue to the nuclear talks, and you even hold the talks basically hostage until their demands are met, and it just indicates how much of a miscalculation everything was. So, yeah, we'll take the over on the 60.

Let's talk about these technical discussions now, right?

Because as you mentioned, Kyle, you can push off the nuclear issue until a later date. There's two ways to read that. That can either be read as a genuine route to have this discussion at a later time, or it can be read as kind of a way to reach into a negotiating purgatory and then stay there forever.

So I think it really depends on what your read is there. So at this point, what do you make of the direction and any potential progress that we're seeing out of these talks? Because from what I'm seeing, it does not seem that there's been very much at all.

No, there's almost no progress at all on the nuclear side of things. And then on Hormuz itself, we continue to have just ambiguity to be generous on what's actually going on here.

So a bit of news that came out yesterday via The Times is that Iranian officials and an unspecified regional diplomat who is accredited to Oman were discussing a plan with the United States under which shipping companies would pay service fees to transit through the strait.

The Omani diplomat said the fees would be voluntary, while Iran said that it would be mandatory. So as usual, we can see they're really trying to finagle this in terms of how the wording is presented. Oman was, just for some context, very opposed to the idea of tolls in the first place.

But as the war both progressed and then as Iran really emerged as having come out ahead, they are naturally pivoting, which makes sense. They also are trying to maintain a very awkward position in the region because they are part of the GCC and they are trying to maintain their alliance with the rest of the Gulf.

And the rest of the Gulf, mind you, very opposed to tolling.

Even the more, like Qatar is relatively friendly with Iran, or at least for the regional standards. But they are also very opposed to any such tolling. So Oman is really between a rock and a hard place because Iran is both simultaneously trying to get them to work with them.

But at the same time, they were more than happy to shoot at these guys during the war. So it's quite a conundrum to be in. I have always said, since the war began, since we began this podcast, since the three of us got to talking about what is happening in the Middle East, that it would always end up with Oman siding with Iran on the tolling issue.

So even the sheer fact that they've put forth a proposal and tabled it to the United States and said, hey, this is what we're thinking we want, voluntary tools. Even that is just... such a big shift from where they were during the war, you know, when Iran was actively bombing them and bombing everyone within reach.

It's such a fundamental shift, but it's something I definitely saw coming because as long as Iran maintains the ability to close the strait, and that is an ability that they will have unless the US can literally occupy the entire Iranian coastline and make sure they can't launch a drone because that is an ability they have because shipping lines are by their

Very nature just a fragile business and they don't want any sort of risk.

They want to avoid risk as much as possible. So as long as the IRGC has that ability, as long as they're the ones in charge of Iran, as long as they're the ones setting policy, it was in Oman's best interest to, you know, at the very least flat with the idea of imposing tolls on shipping, passing through the Strait of Omoz.

For the other GCC companies, they don't want tolls, obviously because the money will go to Iran and, you know, Iran will use that to improve its arsenal, be a bigger threat, continue to fund proxies, continue to be a regional menace, but that's the reality that we're living in right now.

One thing I do want to mention is the model that Oman has proposed as part of these negotiations. It's modeled on what is happening in the Strait of Malacca in Singapore where a private foundation collects the contributions from shipping lines passing through the Strait and, you know, uses it for maintenance, uses it to fund your safe passage.

So for anyone listening who's not familiar with the Strait of Malacca and Singapore, it's another really important waterway, roughly a third of the world's crude oil and more than 80% of Japan's oil imports pass through it.

So for the countries that are literally bordering it, they don't have the technical capacity to ensure that your ships are passing through. So there's a foundation called the Nippon Foundation that handles all the collections and actually assists ships to pass through.

So if, you know, that is what Oman is proposing and Iran is definitely not going to like that, they want to collect the tools themselves, I wonder how, you know, they'll find a middle ground.

Yeah, I'm curious what you both make of the idea of a voluntary toll at all because to me that sounds like one of these things that either you say it's really truly voluntary and then just nobody pays it because it's voluntary, right? Or this is kind of a difference in this, like, mafioso language, right?

Of, well, you know, the toll is voluntary, it's not voluntary. voluntary it's just your mafioso in town happens to have a sense of humor and says that it's optional and really it's not right so is there a way that a voluntary toll both could be implemented and also could result in the revenues that might keep iran from then just imposing a complete toll or

Is this just a non-starter or a cover for something else i think it's basically just a cover here so because omat is in a unique position and we were talking earlier about how that can be challenging for them but they actually do have some advantages here as well so they can say it's optional because they're not going to be the ones shooting at ships right i

Mean it's not going to be omani anything being launched in the general direction of hormos so they can say sure pay it or maybe not you know who's who are we to say and then the guys who are actually doing the shooting on the other side in iran are saying no it's it's real it's mandatory pay it or else so they're sort of straddling the line so to speak when

I saw that oman was saying this tool will be voluntary it reminded me of a of a quote from the godfather where you know the titular godfather said never get angry never make a threat reason with people this is oman trying to seem like the reasonable party while iran can get to play bad cop and tell everyone hey if you don't do it we'll we'll willingly break

Your knees and you'll cripple your shipping lines so i think it's just that oman can play good cop and say oh this is voluntary and iran can say yeah voluntary and i do think it's worth noting how big of a change this is for oman as well we don't really talk about oman very much in middle east politics and they kind of like it that way right because they're

So staunchly neutral and everything they really are kind of the picture perfect example of like we're gonna sit over here export a bit of oil not getting anybody's way it's gonna be fine right that's kind of how oman has done business for a long time this is a big swing to start with as this country starts to step away from pure strategic non-alignment and

Starts to take more of a geopolitical position on anything right having your first position being i'm going to be part of a new toll on the strait of ramos is a hell of a swing so how do you what do you make of oman's entry into this dynamic more broadly and do you think this is a country that we're we should expect to see more as a player in middle eastern

Politics than it's been or are they going to kind of try to have it both ways get the toll and maintain neutrality as well i think it's going to be more of a case of that they're maintaining whatever strategic neutrality they can although you may start seeing them flex slightly more muscle so But I still have to imagine it's going to be quite limited because

Overall, the reason that they're involved in this in the first place is for two reasons, neither which are under their control.

So the first one being that Iran was attacking them, admittedly less than the other GCC states during the war, but still they did damage, including to energy infrastructure, by the way, during the war itself. And the second being geography. It's very difficult to set up a tolling booth when you only have control of one side of the highway.

So ultimately, Iran needs Oman to at least play along with whatever they're doing. To be honest, I think some of this optional stuff, which I don't think this is very serious, to be honest, I think it's just them trying to find a way out.

But this is still maintaining neutrality because to whatever extent they can, because this way they have like the best possible option.

So if tolling goes ahead and gets underway, then Oman can say, look, now we're set to get all this cash. We're not shooting at anybody. So, you know, if all this money just happens to start showing up in Muscat, that'd be an absolute tragedy, you know, but who are we to complain?

So but otherwise, if not, then they can say, look, we're not the ones saying it was mandatory. We didn't say you had to pay these tolls. We're just here.

Iran is over there. They were shooting at us. Now we're trying to find some workable agreement.

So I think they're just trying to play it both ways to whatever extent possible. I agree with Kyle. I think Oman is trying to have their cake and eat it at the same time, benefit from the tolls while trying to maintain their strategic neutrality.

I don't think they're positioned in any place that you would allow them to be a major player in Middle Eastern politics, because a lot of Middle Eastern politics just boils down to who has the most money. And, you know, when it comes down to it, Oman only has more money than, I think, Bahrain.

If I'm not wrong, every other Middle Eastern country is much, much richer than Oman.

And yes, they will get, you know, whatever flows into their coffers from tolling the street. But it still won't be enough to, you know, catch up with the likes of Saudi Arabia that, you know, has a nominal GDP of about $1.39 trillion, while Oman has a nominal GDP of about $117 billion.

There's such a wide gulf there, pardon the pun, that even with this money coming in, it won't be able to bridge that.

But so for Oman, the best case scenario is still trying to maintain their strategic neutrality while benefiting as much as they come from whatever tools will come in. And then moving back to the technical talks between the U.S. and Iran.

So these nuclear discussions have been pushed off, and as we've already mentioned, there's a chance that they could be pushed off for a much longer period of time.

So in a retrospective sense, looking back at the U.S. operation that was ostensibly carried out in Iran to keep Iran away from a nuclear program, right, at this stage, how big of a problem is it for the U.S., and I suppose also for Israel, that there's really not a clear end date or resolution date on this?

I would say that ultimately, like in any world that the 14-point memorandum of understanding does not exist, that it would be a massive issue. But in this current world, in which that 14-point memorandum of understanding does exist, it's honestly more of a side issue, so to speak.

Not insignificant in and of itself, but it's going to be secondary, because we haven't even fully established the MOU that ended the war in the first place. So until that gets established, there's almost this understanding that any nuclear discussions or agreements are going to be pretty unrealistic until then.

So ultimately, I don't see it as enormously consequential in the short term.

I think longer term, it may obviously rear its head again. I agree with Kyle on this. In the short term, as long as the MOU is in place, there's still room for negotiations.

But the longer this goes without a deal, the longer that Iran can drag this out, if we get to the midterms, at that point, I start getting worried. And then let's talk about another element of the negotiations as they're playing out now, which is the release of assets. So Iran has now started to accept some direct transfers of funds.

But we've just watched over this past weekend a pretty major exchange compared to what else has happened during this negotiating period between Iran and the U.S. directly. So my biggest question here is, as Iran is starting to accept these funds back, is this a rearmament concern from the U.S. perspective?

Is this an influx of cash that Iran can now use to strengthen its military, strengthen its position, relieve some of the immediate economic stressors that they've been dealing with?

Or is this a concession that's just kind of drip feeding Iran what it needs to survive long enough to get through negotiations? For this, I want to quote a tweet by Syed Mohamed Marandi. He's a professor of English literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran.

And he's one of the figures who's extremely close to the regime. Basically, whatever he tweets is whatever Iran is thinking, whatever Tehran is thinking, whatever the leadership class is thinking.

So he posted on X that Iran is rapidly... building its civilian infrastructure, stockpiling critical supplies, advancing new weapon systems, replacing thousands of destroyed decoys, fielding emerging technologies and expanding its network of underground bases and command and control centers.

So he's basically laid it out for us, exactly what Iran is going to be using this money to do. It's a rearmament fund. It's money meant to make sure that Iran can survive the next coming phase of this war, because in Tehran, there's a fundamental belief that no matter what happens, this war won't end with an MOU.

It won't end with whatever peace deal might come out in 60 days, that it is, wherever. There's still more on the horizon. So yeah, for Washington, they obviously know this is a rearmament risk, but the terms of the MOU are pretty clear.

Money needs to flow into Iranian bank accounts. It's just what it is. Yeah, we actually have an episode that just went up on Fronts.co, written by yours truly, on how to spend $400 billion if anybody is suddenly flushed with cash, so to speak, with Tehran very much being in this position.

Now, obviously, the release of these funds are more gradual. So today we do have, as of Wednesday morning, U.S. time, we do have news that an initial agreement to release $3 billion to Iran has been reached during indirect talks between U.S. and Iran in Doha.

So this is the start of what's going to be a significant sum of cash that's more of a trickle in rather than one massive payday.

But overall, Iran has been very clear that they're going to spend this however they see fit. And there's varying discussions inside the country as to just how much to spend on military versus economics and rebuilding and whatnot. Ultimately, it's going to take the form of both.

It's just the question of which gets prioritized above the other. But overall, like the U.S. has been just making, to be honest, like they've been saying stuff that just simply is not true. So Trump was saying that there's going to be restrictions, that they have to buy U.S. grown agricultural products.

This is just not true. So Iranian officials were telling Lebanese media that they have no such intention of doing so, and that there's no agreement in the, there's no part of the MRU that stipulates this.

And actually, if you read the, I believe it's point 11 in the MRU that specifically specifies the Iranian central bank will be the one determining where this money gets allocated to.

So I think that's more or less speaks for it. self in terms of where that goes from here. I think it's really, really interesting that Trump tried to make that claim that, you know, Iran will have to buy American soy, American crops, basically.

And the belief was that it would be, this money will be going to American farmers who have been ravaged by the war in Iran, who've been ravaged by the tariffs.

And it will boost Trump's Republican Party in the upcoming midterms.

And yeah, as you said, Kyle, it's something that Iran was very quick to say, yeah, that's not happening to, because, again, as written, rules as written, for anyone who plays Dungeons and Dragons, you'll be very familiar with this, rules as written, the MOU as written says, the money will go to Iran, and the Iranian people will be the one to decide what to

Do with it.

So I have an episode on war fronts that came out last week on whether the peace deal could break Iran's government.

And one of the points I made was that by Trump doing this, he's just giving fodder to, you know, the groups within Iran that believe this peace deal is flawed from the start. And him continuously pushing this idea, it's been dropped in the past few days since the video was dropped.

Him continuously pushing this idea was doing more harm than good to the negotiations as a whole.

I think this also gets to an interesting divide inside of the country. So in foreign affairs recently, there was an article by Vali Nasser, which was of particular interest to me.

Now, Vali Nasser is an interesting figure because he is somebody I consider worth reading with the understanding that he is relatively well connected with the Iranian government and is, or at least parts of the Iranian government.

He represents a very pro-reformist faction within the government or supportive of them to be to the to the, at the very least. He is making the claim that while all this attention is being given to the people at the very top so Bahidi, Mostaba, those sorts of people who have huge influence now, they represent the sort of second generation of Iranians.

So they're second generation of the Islamic Republic, but they are getting older now anyway.

But the more middle managerial class in terms of both IRGC and civilian governance writ large is a much younger third generation of Iranians now who are far less ideological.

So he makes the argument that Iran Han has gone from being a or he is in the process of going from being a religiously defined revolutionary state to being essentially a conservative, like authoritarian state. And I find it to be an interesting argument, but I'm not sure I fully buy it.

I think he's directionally correct that this may be where the country is headed.

But I think the broader implications of where they're going to spend this money is really going to determine where they see themselves going, because this younger generation very much recognizes that the dire situation that the Iranian economy is in is simply a nonstarter for so many young Iranians who don't see a future in the country, don't see a future

With the state of the economics there.

And even now after the war, the real has fallen to levels previously thought unimaginable.

So if they start going super hard at the military above all else dynamic, I think this sort of discrues Vassar's argument and in so doing would basically say that they haven't learned that much from the January protests.

So I find that to be a very interesting thought experiment because we've all been trying to figure out what the future of Iran looks like once this war is over, once the dust settles and rubber meets the road and they have to make decisions on how to govern.

He is right that the third generation of IRGC leaders is a lot less ideologically driven than the first two generations.

And I think part of that is because they were not there for the for the revolution, you know, the 1979 revolution. They were kids at most. So they didn't have that first hand experience, that first hand knowledge of what it was like in Iran beforehand and what the revolution was necessarily fighting for.

So they might understand it intellectually, but it's one thing to understand something intellectually, it's another to live through it's another to be there, to be in the streets, to mobilize people, to have the kind of battles that were happening in during the revolution itself.

And it's another to read about it, and it's another to read about it in books, study it at the university, and it's still some form of ideological conditioning, but it's not the exact same, it's leagues different.

But even if these guys, the third generation of IRGC leadership is not as ideologically... inclined as you know the first two generations there are still elements within you know the iranian leadership class that will always be ideologically inclined and you know they'll always select for people who are even more ideologically inclined than the past

Generations because i'm thinking about a group like the paidari front you know the front of islamic revolution stability the group that considers itself the guardians of the islamic revolution they are one of the most hardline groups within iran there they make you know guys like vaidi just look like a moderate by comparison that's that's such a insane

Statement for me to make it's it's not something i ever thought i'd be saying out loud but as long as groups like that remain i think and you know this might be my bias showing because of just how much i've been you're starting up on the front of late i think they'd be able to you know push iran into you know an ideologically driven direction yeah if itamar

Bengavir was a persian guy he would be the paidari front for sure but i do think ultimately where this comes down to is the lessons from january so for a long time and this is true with many revolutionary states so cuba to some extent venezuela to different variations these sort of revolutionary states that have bold claims as to how well the revolution went

And if anyone disagrees there is significant challenges to your well-being shall we say so unlike the case with countries that are more authoritarian but have genuinely solid economies so think for instance china the islamic revolution has for many years basically put such a heavy burden on the people who were expected to go along with this and because of

The revolution so it's not even the revolution was helping you it's you have to suck it up and get through this so that we can continue on with our project here and for several for many decades this actually was able to more or less hold together there were some protests over different years but given crackdowns they were able to hold it together and it

Really fell apart in january so it got to a point where the economic side of things basically was just too big of a problem to ignore especially with these younger iranians who when you're just being brought up in a country where you can't afford basic goods to get by with the whole project of the government there just didn't catch on the way that the senior

Officials would have liked it to.

But where this ultimately comes down to me is where do they go from here? If they go about military above all else without delivering on significant economic reform, I don't know how well they're going to be able to make inroads with this younger generation.

And I think that Vassar's argument is essentially treating what is very much still up in the air as basically a done deal.

I agree. I agree. Because there's always this idea of a social contract between governments and their people.

And for a long time now, the Iranian government hasn't been holding up its part of the social contract that in exchange for the Iranian people adhering to their version of Islamic law, they would achieve some level of economic stability, economic growth. That hasn't been happening. And a key part of that story was always America's sanctions, America is bad.

But if this is a really big if, if we get to a point where sanctions are lifted and Iran still chooses to go all in on spending on its military, you're arming its proxies, you're spending money outside of Iran instead of spending it on the Iranian people, then yeah, that will be a very difficult conversation that they will need to have with the Iranian

People.

They won't be able to get by and they won't be able to convince the public to support them. But again, I think we might be looking too far ahead.

And it's something that will develop over time and is definitely worth watching. But again, we're not in Tehran. We don't know what the people are feeling.

Because yes, there are lessons to be learned from January. But the protesters also learned a very important lesson that the government will go to any lengths to quell protests, to stop public dissent.

And given the fact that there's been at least more than 100, what are they called, executions since late May, going all the way into June, I think it's a lesson that's going to stick for a while.

And on those executions, because we are seeing the rate of both trials, prosecutions, etc., really starting to ramp up, do we anticipate that there's going to be any room left from the U.S., from the global West, to try and engage with the Iranian protest movement as the survivors exist now, or to try and get in the way of the reprisals that seem to be

Coming down from the top, from the regime?

Do you anticipate that there's any room left to get in the way there?

Or is this just going to be a very difficult time for a lot of Iranians after this war settles? so the second clause of the mou says and i'll quote it here the united states of america and the islamic republic of iran undertake to respect each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity and to refrain from interfering in each other's internal affairs so i

Quote this because it's the only it's the only part of the mou that could you know by any stretch of the imagination be taken to be referring to you know the protesters and the iranian public as a whole since the war began and you trump put out his statement you're urging the iranian people to take over their government and you know netanyahu put out

Something similar there's been very little talk about the iranian people you know other than statements saying that washington was disappointed that you know they tries up so this clause in the mou tells me washington has basically washed its hands and is like okay as long as you know you honor the rest of the terms of this agreement we can get you not to

Get a nuclear bomb whatever you do within your own country is up to you we won't really interfere yeah it's over man it's it's over for these any thought of u.s backed iranian protestors so ultimately this has blackened the eye of any commitment by the that may come from the u.s moving forward in the region in terms of will have said the president saying

We'll have your back which is why it's one thing for the president to do this sort of charade back and forth when it comes to governments but another entirely when it comes to protesters and people who truly have their life on the line because of these types of things yeah it is hard to express the disappointment at least on my end you know having watched

These these protests play out in january as we all did and seeing how completely these people have just been abandoned it doesn't seem like there's going to be any way forward for them to avoid or resist the reprisals that are coming in it's it's it's extremely unfortunate to that end do you think there's any room for anybody else around the world to put a

Finger on the scales here or potentially do you think there's a reason for the iranian leadership to i don't know try and rebuild some goodwill try to establish some kind of more favorable relationship with these people or do you expect the reprisals which are just coming down the pipeline anyway so there's a number you know i've been quoting a lot in my

Pieces that about 40 percent of iran supports the irgc in one form or the other either because they benefit from it directly either because you know they're ideologically inclined along the same day direction of the IRGC, just because of some misplaced sense of patriotism.

And I think for the IRGC, that is enough. They have their core supporters. They have the people who will always show up for them.

And whatever the rest of the country says, it doesn't really matter because who has the guns? Who has the bombs? Who has all this surveillance equipment?

So the IRGC has no incentive to improve relations with the people. It's just going to be a series of reprisals from here on out, and it's going to be ugly. I agree.

I think the biggest takeaway here being, going into this, there was sort of a question as to just how long can a government that lacks legitimacy with many, but not all of the country can hold on. So in the case, if it lacked legitimacy with the overwhelming majority, the answer would most likely be not long at all.

But because it had enough support, including critically with the guys who have the guns, they were able to stick around.

And so that sets a precedent that I can guarantee you, authoritarian leaders throughout the world have looked on the events of the January crackdown and thought, if push comes to shove, that's what we do.

As someone who's covered protests extensively and who's covering the Serbian protests tonight, it's extremely worrying to know that, you know, this is the model that governments will adopt moving forward. I, again, I live in Kenya, the two of you live in the United States.

So I have been to a protest where the government forces were willingly shooting at the crowd, and you're using live rounds of ammunition. I saw a guy get shot in the head. It was absolutely as horrific as you can imagine.

And life just went on. The government is still in power. Government forces are still killing people.

And the momentum of protests has just been completely derailed, because there's this lingering sense of fear that if they could do that, what else can they do? So it's just a really, really sad time. So then, obviously, this is not going to reach the people in Iran.

And I'm sure they have a better idea of the answer to this question than we would from sitting on the outside. But for people who are listening from around the world, then what can ordinary Iranians do at this point to keep themselves as safe as they can and to prepare for what's coming?

Honestly, the best thing as someone who has to cover the government in an antagonistic manner and suscri averaging on the mandarin, and sp confine.

And it is a little extraordinary thing for they're here and for the news from everyone. The response is there. The efforts there are It's like, oh, you know, doing this process with them all, you know, more important and done with them.

But yeah. Quindi, so there is ultimately where there are mental different observations of them, because of what they're in common. I think it's done who has stories in the pipeline that have exposed me to some form of government surveillance and just a general sense of unease.

The best thing I would advise is for them to just put their heads down and wait it out because the initial wave will be the worst. That's why we're seeing a continued set of executions happening. They didn't even stop a while in the middle of the war.

That should tell you something. So my advice would just be for them to keep their heads down, focus on their families, focus on their friends, just try to keep their communities as safe as possible and not antagonize the ARGC. It might sound defeatist, but honestly, you'd rather live to fight another day than die trying to be a hero.

I don't want to agree with that, but I can't really bring myself to disagree with it. So we are here, unfortunately. The situation is just that ugly on the ground.

But by giving way to the regime even more, it certainly emboldens the hardliners in the country even more. So it's something that I'm going to leave up to any individual Iranian to act as they see fit is my best way.

Because as much as I cover this on a seemingly daily basis at this point, I recognize the limitations as to what I'm able to discern from over here in the States.

Yeah, it's unfortunate, Wilford, because obviously you've lived through this, right? And you say you don't want to ever be defeatist. At the same time, right, there comes a point where you've been defeated.

And unfortunately, it seems like through a lot of choices that the U.S. made, through a lot of choices that the international community made, the people of Iran have been left behind by all this.

And so it's tough to really, you know, have a conclusion here other than just kind of to point out that is what has happened and to encourage everybody listening to look at that and don't shy away from it, be very clear about what's happening here. But tough to really do or say anything more than that.

Honestly, it's really tough. I did a piece at the beginning of the war looking at what life was like for the Iranian civilians who were caught in the middle of all this. And I will probably do another piece once the war is completely over, looking at what life is like for them at that point in time and, you know, into the future.

And I don't want to be defeatist, but I am scared for the Iranian people. Just with my experience of having lived through this and just knowing what comes next, honestly sad. Yeah.

And I want to take a little more unconventional turn. compared to our usual at the middle east round table because we are talking about this side of things one of the questions that i get a lot and i'm sure this is true for you guys when i speak about what i do with people who are not familiar who are in the industry and who are learning about fronts and

Kind of the way in which we cover this in the depth that we like try to look at as many areas around the world as possible one of the things that i get asked very often is some version of well how are you not so depressed all the time right learning about this and thinking about it so as we are you know kind of like sitting with this in a way that we really

Haven't done since the war broke out i guess my question to you both would be an amended version of that which is how do we now go and sit with that reality of like no this was you know there was maybe some noble intention here but it was absolutely botched it was it was played horribly it was it has failed and now untold numbers of people in iran are going

To pay the price for that how is how do you sit with that moving forward and how do you how do you with your experience and your knowledge from having done this job for a while how do you look directly at that and reckon with it in a way that isn't just defeatist that's a heavy heavy question because again for me personally with my personal experience i am

Living through the exact same thing in kenya right now there's a heavy sense of what could have been of your noble aspirations from the 2024-2025 protests a very heavy sense of what could have been here when we look at places like nepal i'm not going to say madagascar because that ended up being a military coup but just a heavy sense of what could have been

So how i tend to sit with that is just remove myself from the situation as much as possible try to do as much dispassionate analysis as possible because at the end of the day that is what we are we are analysts we are reporters we are writers who have to take all of this we have to synthesize everything that we're getting and you we have to provide analysis

Outlooks you stuff that cannot be impacted by you know our personal our personal beliefs our personal objections of something we have to be as dispassionate as possible at least that's what i keep telling myself that's that's just how i have learned to sit with this and just live with it knowing that on a personal level this really really sucks but you know

On an analytical level there's a real politic explanation behind it i just need to find it yeah i also have a similar take on this Coming from this in the States, so separating it from my public warfronts coverage, more for the personal analyst side of things, I thought going into this war, this was going to be a turning point in terms of this sort of

Contention going on with U.S. foreign policy in domestic politics.

So when we talk about interventions, there has been broadly a move away in the minds of many Americans. Ultimately, if this war worked out in a way that was even plausibly sellable as a win, I thought that it was going to be something that said, OK, perhaps the reactions to Iraq and long-term occupations like that were one thing.

But more short-term engagements might not necessarily be as unpopular. This was such a catastrophe for both Iranians as well as the U.S. I think we're now in a situation where we're going to start seeing more of a turn away because Americans see this did not help the United States to however well-tuned in they are to Iranians themselves.

I mean, there is a significant Iranian diaspora here in the States, so it's just a very unforced error that didn't need to happen.

And I think that we're going to be talking about the fallout from it for some time to come. Yeah, no, I very much agree with that.

Also, from a U.S. perspective, I, like we've said on prior episodes and like I've said personally, I, you know, as a private citizen, looking at my government's actions, looking at the choices that they made, I don't believe this war should have happened at all.

I think it was ill-conceived. It was poorly done. It was needless.

It was all kinds of things. That being said, and excuse my French here, but I don't really feel the need to mince words right now. If the U.S. was going to start this, I didn't expect it to bitch out, quite frankly.

If you're going to start all of this and take it this far, you don't then capitulate now and leave the Iranian people where they are, leave the Iranian regime where it is, right?

If you're going to go to all of these lengths to start something like this, it's stunning to me that not just that a decision was taken to start this war, not just that a decision was taken to stop the war, but that there was any room in the minds of these U.S. leaders for a scenario where this war began, was opted into voluntarily, and ended this way,

Right? that is just that was stunning to me in a way that not very many things have been doing this job you know and maybe i'm out on a limb with that maybe that's not you know exactly a shared opinion but that's all long good my only other point on you know kind of the other question of like holding this i guess for me the thing it always comes back to is

There is something deep in us i think that knows when to be concerned and knows when to be afraid but it doesn't always know why right and i think it's very easy to go through life with an understanding that something big and something bad is wrong right and to be scared by that and put off by it and not want to look any closer because it's it's protecting

Yourself right and at least i've found with this job especially look directly at it you know the more you understand about what is going wrong the more oddly enough like little bits of light seem to come in right wilford you talk about what do you do in this situation will you fall back on community you fall back on the people around you keep each other safe

Right and obviously you never want to be in a position where that's something that people are having to try and figure out how to do right and yet at the same time there's there's you know there's there's something beautiful in the idea of like when all else has gone horribly you know you hold to the people who are dearest to you and you keep them safe but

Also it's it i think it speaks to well yes these reprisals are very damaging and they have destroyed so many lives they also don't make it impossible to care for those around you right and i don't know that's something that if you have this very surface level understanding of what's happening i don't know if that's something that you ever get the relief of

Knowing right so i think at least for me the only other thing that i would add is like as horrible as it is right what's about to happen in iran what's happening in so many places around the world the best thing we can do as outside observers is to look at it and not have any not leave anything up to our imagination understand what it is i think very well

Said i think you speak at least for me as well when we're talking about u.s strategy going into this thing if you're going to do this the worst way to go about it is a wishy-washy half-assed measure and that's basically what we did so certainly the opening rounds were not wishy-washy but in terms of the willingness to see it through in terms of actually

Maintaining u.s interests in the region was just like totally not thought through it seems as well as actually being able to deliver on reforms for the iranian people protections for them all these sorts of things you know kind of think you around in a way to be able to do it so we could see it things just completely sort of left as a bunch of question marks

That never really materialized.

And so that to me is such an interesting dynamic because when we think about war planners and when we think about the strategy behind this stuff, this may be either me exposing my naivete or something that's more broadly shared.

But I think overall, we think of countries that go at this stuff as going into it with a clear, clearly laid out process. They have an idea as to what they want, how to get there and back up plans in case something goes wrong. Sometimes it's just that there's a lot of question marks and that there's no great theory behind a lot of this stuff.

And so in terms of the fallout from that, I am sort of curious because the two leading Republicans who would be ostensibly well-placed to be 2028 nominees are both heavily associated with this war, albeit in different ways.

So when it comes to that, I am sort of curious as to your guys' thoughts thoughts on just where you think this goes for the vice president and secretary of state. So this is something I have been following extremely closely because those two are the hopes of the Republican Party.

They're the hope of the GOP that they can manage to choral together enough of Trump's base enough of the coalition that got him into power that the Republicans stay in power for as long as they can. Because we all know power is a pendulum. It's currently tilting to the right.

At some point, it will tilt back to the left. One of my favorite phrases from this entire war has been Trump saying, if it goes well, he'll take credit. And if it goes to shit, J.D.

Vance will take the blame. And I think that's just a perfect encapsulation of where and how much this war has the potential to damage J.D. Vance's political career.

He, from all the reporting that was done earlier in the war, he was one of the few voices that argued against it. And because of that, he's been saddled with the task of getting a peace deal. It's Trump saying, okay, you didn't want us to go to war?

Cool. Get us a workable deal. And for whatever reason, that isn't, that is a really hard task for J.D.

Vance. Vance. Vance.

He... before he was vice president he wasn't a diplomat he isn't someone with the necessary foreign relationships to make this happen i'm not saying he's not surrounded by extremely qualified people it's just that he himself you know by virtue of how he came into power is not perhaps the most well-equipped person to deal with this conversely you know we look

At marco rubio and this is a guy who's gone from success to success to success basically he's taking credit for all of the administration's actions in latin america and those will be very popular with trump's hispanic base and the iran war for some reason doesn't look like it's going to stick to him he's just going to be able to say that was trump's war jd

Vance was the one who negotiated that deal if you don't like it there's the guy you should blame and if was it rubio did say that he wasn't going to run against vance but if you the donors see the peace deal the entire war as an albatross around vance's neck they're going to flock to rubio and he's going to become a very favored contender among them so

That's how i see it affecting their political futures i'm not fully settled on which side has the worst fallout but i am less determined that vance will be as hard hit with rubio as unscathed as i think you may be in vance's biggest vulnerability is certainly the role he's played with the mou i don't disagree but he has such a fallback on this because he can

Say he this thing was a mistake from the beginning it was time the u.s had to get out and did the deal suck yeah it did and if i was president it wouldn't have happened you know this was triage whereas rubio i don't know how he can dodge that because whether like to whatever extent he did or did not support it before it kicked off he is very much more in

Line with the more interventionist wing of the gop and so even he was also secretary of state who oversaw both this as well as well as a national security advisor mind you throughout this whole war as well as the mou so i think they both have significant exposure on this and i think rubio may have more than vance to be honest i think yeah this is one of

Those things we'll will disagree on and part of it for me boils to something that might look absolutely silly the ufc event it was this was either the ufc event just before the one at the white house or the one at the white house and rubio was there looking all calm and cool while jd vance was shitting bricks trying to figure out you know how to resolve the

Us the us-iran war and find a workable deal for everyone that to me tells me rubio isn't really concerned about this war plus you know if it doesn't go well he has all the memes of him as the ayatollah as the next pope as the next president of venezuela to fall back on and from the last campaigning season memes were such a powerful tool that it could

Outweigh any potential truth because truth be told the american electorate isn't as steeped into you know this kind of stuff as we are they don't you know necessarily follow the ins and outs if something you know blows up as a popular meme it becomes something of truth and you're not necessarily a hundred percent true and i'm not saying that the american

Electorate is dumb rather that it's easy for information to spread through memes than it does through news and you know analytical work like the stuff we do so for sure yes for sure completely agree but you are right on the meme importance for political campaigning but ultimately i mean i just i don't think that the mou is as much of a black eye because i

Don't think many americans even know what the mou is i think many of them see this as just we went to war with iran it didn't go so hot and then we're trying to get out and it's kind of a mess so right now a lot of this is going to be to me i put rubio in a slight disadvantage over vance so kyle another thing that i wanted to talk about was jd vance's

Appearance on the michael knolls show michael knolls is a right-wing commentator very popular guy within certain circles he has an audience perhaps not as big as tucker carlson but he's on the daily wire ben shapiro's network and you he appeals to certain people so on that show the biggest talking point for me was jd vance saying in effect that trump wanted

To get the mou done specifically in order to refill the world's oil economy and to boost stocks and at the same time take some of the pressure off of them and this reminds me of a very specific phrase that i saw somewhere on twitter i'd like to be able to give the originator of this the credit they deserve but i can't remember it off the top of my head but

You Basically, the Strait of Hormuz was a spring that Iran had placed a lot of pressure on.

And as long as Iran could exert pressure on that spring, and the world economy kept drawing oil from its strategic reserves, and the world's oil supply just kept dwindling and dwindling, from some estimates I've seen, the world had basically about four weeks, four to eight weeks before we were really looking at a crisis, because we were looking at a crisis,

But we were really looking at a crisis.

So by agreeing to open the Strait of Hormuz for whatever gains that Iran has made, they have released, they've allowed your pressure to be released from the spring, and it will be very, very difficult to load that spring again.

So Iran has given up some of the strategic leverage. Anyway, this has given the Trump administration some cards that it can now play that it couldn't before. Kyle, what do you think?

Yeah, it's curious to me that this was such a vulnerability that Trump himself overlooked because of how energy-centric he is, and as well as the country more writ large by international standards. So, I mean, there's certainly divergence between the parties here in terms of energy policy, but overall, we are a pretty pro-energy country.

We have become the world's largest energy or oil exporter, which is something that not many people know, but we've surpassed that of every other country.

We are number one on oil at this point, which happened under the Biden administration, actually. I believe we hit that point in 2024. So very unique to me that Hormuz played such a blind spot to him because he is somebody who has resolutely championed energy, both domestic as well as abroad.

So overall, it's just a very odd situation that this was ultimately what led to such a U.S. strategic setback in the region. And I do have to imagine that Iran will be more than willing to continue to close this moving forward. But to your point about it sort of releasing some pressure, there's not much traffic getting through Hormuz right now.

I have a map pulled up here, and there are a few ships, but one of them ran aground earlier this morning. So that's blocking some of the already narrow strait.

And then there's also the ongoing threat that anyone being or anyone transiting through gets shot at, which sends insurance costs up, which is why half of these guys who may otherwise want. want to get through simply cannot.

So in the main scheme of it all, this is going to be a long journey ahead just to get back to where we were before the war broke out, especially in terms of energy. I agree. Just one of the things that really, really will stick with me from this war is just how big a strategic miscalculation not factoring in Hormuz was.

And to your point about ships not crossing the strait, it will definitely take time. But as long as there are some ships flowing through, I've seen some Saudi ships flow through with a ton of oil, it does take some pressure off of the global markets. But finally, let's pivot to Lebanon.

Kyle, this is your area. Take us through it. Sure.

So at long last, perhaps the negotiators heard my rant during last week's episode in which I was giving everybody a scolding that none of the U.S., Israeli or Lebanese government's approaches were yielding any form of results and that Iran's hard line over Hormuz was actually making inroads with Lebanon in terms of presenting itself, at least, as a defender

Of the country.

The day after we recorded, we had an actual breakthrough for the first time in months.

So there is a deal, a second 14-point plan, very different than the first, that essentially establishes coordination between the Israeli defense forces to withdraw from parts of southern Lebanon and for the LAF to replace them to be monitored as well and for the United States to be providing training to the LAF itself.

Now, the deal itself is a step in the right direction is how I will personally put it. It concerns me that it is as limited as it is.

Just this morning, I have it here that Israel is already stalling on actually withdrawing from the country until they get a more sophisticated monitoring mechanism to make sure that the LAF is, in fact, disarming Hezbollah in the areas that they agree to.

So far, they've only agreed to two pilot zones, one of which was not occupied by the IDF, one of which is. Now, this goes to a long-time concern by the Shiite faction in the country.

So represented by the two parties, Amal and Hezbollah, that essentially the IDF can have the Lebanese forces go in and do its own bidding in areas that the IDF has not been able to capture from Hezbollah while making no concessions themselves.

Some of that to me is. is legitimate in concern by way of israel seemingly not willing to actually withdraw too much so ultimately where this is going to come down to is israel going to play ball with the government in beirut if so i think we have something that could really work here if not we're going to be in a situation where the government is seen as

Increasingly weak and perhaps that has the law begins to start making more inroads once again with people who had been quite upset with them for starting this war in the first place so i have one question for you kyle so the lebanese government has repositioned itself as a very sovereignist project as the defenders of lebanese sovereignty so how do they

Square that with the deal that they made with israel and how you do they explain that to the public yeah so the deal is essentially the government's way of saying this is the only way we get lebanese sovereignty back and to be honest i agree with them this is the only place that they can get lebanese sovereignty back which is why i think it's incredibly

Important both for the laf to be effective in terms of deploying and disarming hezbollah as well as for the idf to play ball with them in terms of actually withdrawing so that residents can return to the areas in the pilot zones which steadily expand over time but again this deal is very limited in terms of there are no timelines so once these it could take

An indefinite period of time for just these first two areas to be fully cleared before the idf has to do any more withdrawals so we're gonna have to see where that goes ultimately the government is essentially saying if we don't do this israel's never going to leave and we're never going to be at peace and i think there's a lot of credibility to that

Argument but that's where it stands and finally before we wrap up for the day i wanted to ask both of you guys as we always do at the end of these episodes what are you watching in the coming week across the middle east what should we all be paying attention to and what do you expect if anything in terms of the major developments we might see next time

Before we all meet what i am watching this week is something not necessarily related to what we talked about today but is still within the middle east still something i find very fascinating the corruption page that happened within iraq over the weekend and you what happens next i was a very staunch critic of this the iraqi prime minister when he came into

Power because he's an individual without you know much political experience without much knowledge of how the system of power works simply because he is a businessman who existed outside of your political political and the mage channels for a very long time essentially his entire career before becoming prime minister but the existence of that part just the

Fact that so many people were arrested including five sitting members of parliament that shows me he's actually capable at least and has the political will to go after the people that previous Iraqi governments were unwilling to go after so yeah that's what I'm watching Kyle the biggest one for me is going to be the rumored willingness on both Israel's side

And the U.S. side to fire this campaign back up again this has been particularly true in Israel there have been reports going around that the IDF has been told to prepare for independent strikes on the country which I put as slightly more credible than reports that Donald Trump is thinking about going at it again just because of how many rounds of back and

Forth of we're going to completely obliterate these guys we've seen that just absolutely went nowhere so I have a strong suspicion on the U.S. side of things that it's more the case that he's not happy with where the negotiating area currently stands at any given moment and is just sort of blustering on that but I do think we may I think it's more likely

Than not we don't have a return to kinetic action but we may see fireworks start flying again and lastly on my end I'm going to be watching very closely as to what is happening in Iranian Kurdistan right now there have been a couple of scattered reports over the last week or so that Iranian troops are moving toward the Kurdistan region and toward the border

With Iraq where it seems as if Iran may believe that there is some kind of upcoming incursion upcoming military action whatever it may be coming from Kurdish exile populations so it's not totally clear where that's leading at this point but I am very interested in that especially now that hostilities broadly have come to a close what if anything the Kurdish

Population is looking to achieve and what Iran thinks that this imminent threat might be but on that note we're going to wrap it up for the day at the Middle East roundtable first off just a big thanks to both of you for joining me and then thanks to everybody who has listened to this point in the podcast everybody who comes and supports us every week we

Really appreciate you guys's listenership and if you are watching to this point listening to this point we are quite certain that you are either a subscriber to fronts.co or otherwise thinking very hard about it if you subscribe thank you very much for your support truly we could not do what we do here at warfronts on homefronts and in our upcoming projects

Without you guys so really truly thank you for that if you have not signed up yet please consider doing so we have lots of premium exclusive goodies that you guys might be into so take us up on that see if you like it so that, this has been Evan Maloney for the Middle East Roundtable, alongside Kyle Moran and Wolfram Nina.

Thank you very much for joining us, and we'll see you next week.