What’re the Odds Trump’s Bad Deal with Iran Actually Survives?

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Coming to you direct from our Super Secret Studio

“in the third sub-basement of the Ministry of Snark in Washington, D.C.”

and from other undisclosed locations across America and around the world. Hello and welcome to D.S.R. I'm David Rothkoff, and I am joined by our friends and folks with some real insight in what's going on right now.

That includes, of course, Rosa Brooks of Georgetown University Law Center. It was at a undisclosed location in America's Great Middle. How are you doing, Rosa? I'm very well David. And someday as a gift, I'm going to buy you a map of the United States.

But there's a middle, okay? There's a coast and another coast in between those two is a middle. You know, it's what allowed me when I was 49 to think I was in my mid 40s. Anyway, and we have atlose the financial times in Washington, D.C. How are you doing, Ed?

Excellently well, thank you. And we have our friend Kim Gattas who writes for many people, including the FT and writes books and it's just finished a book. And with T.J. at Dartmouth for a while, but now she's back home in Bay Road. How are you doing, Kim?

I'm okay. Good to be home, but also rather depressing. Yeah, well, it is pretty depressing. Few hours before our few moments before we did this,

the United States finally released the terms of its MOU with Iran,

which is supposed to be executed on Friday. We just did a special podcast on that where we went through the terms line by line with two nuclear experts, Joseph and C.O. and John Wostell. The terms are pretty much what we discussed then, although I would have to say, if anything, they've been tweaked slightly and it's even more clear that this agreement

is essentially the United States suing Iran for peace, paying them off big time, giving Iran what Iran wants, and getting very, very little of what the United States has said, it wanted. Iran will come away with cash in multiple forms, including relief of sanctions on oil that it bites sell, release of some of the assets that are held by Iran, and there includes the promise of a

$300 billion reconstruction fund, which will also be greeted with enthusiasm in Iran.

The same time, the U.S. will remove its bucket, the U.S. also pledges to, and this is explicit language. The United States of America further undertakes to remove its forces from the proximity of the Islamic Republic of Iran within 30 days after the final deal.

“What does that mean for Bahrain, for Qatar, for the UAE, for Saudi, interesting question?”

The Iranians will get in this deal, a conversation with Oman over the management of the war moves going forward, certainly good, from their perspective, and as far as Nukes goes, it says Iran, and the language is interesting on this. It says Iran reiterated its commitment not to have a nuclear weapon. I'm sure Iran is the one that under put in the words reiterated, because Iran has been saying,

most recently in the -- as Rosa has taught us to say it, the Jikpua in 2015.

As far as Iran's nuclear, the Fisal material, downblending, or anything else, seems somewhat -- not no harsh issues have been resolved, all pundit off into the negotiating period, which is neatly defined as a maximum of 60 days, which can be extended. That was at a maximum, and it can also be extended, I don't know. But there is no mention of missiles, there is no mention of drones, there is no mention

of proxies, and Trump today in the press conference on this said that, "Well, how can he deny Iran missiles when Saudi has missiles?"

“Of course, by that logic, how can you deny Iran Nukes when Israel has Nukes?”

But it really looks like just Trump wanted to cut and run one of those Brooklyn deals,

you know, they're gangster might do. It's like, how much do I got to give you to make this go away? Not very good. Now, let's start with the perspective on all this from Beirut, because another thing it says, Kim, is that the war in Beirut, the war in Lebanon,

will be ended. Of course, the Israelis are not signatories to this.

The Lebanese government is not a signatory to this, as below is not a signatory to this.

“So I'm not so sure how they could say that, especially since the Israelis are now saying,”

you know, we're not going to follow this. And, you know, Trump also today, or yesterday, was had one line where he said, maybe the Syrians should handle this, the Syrians would do a better job than the Israelis, which I thought was kind of great. Anyway, that's a lot, but what's your action, Kim?

So that's a lot to unpack. Let me start with the final point you made about President Trump suggesting that the Syrians could tackle Hezbollah in Lebanon. The insanity of that idea is just beyond belief for so many reasons.

“Lebanon was under occupation by Syria for many decades under the Assad regime.”

And so maybe the argument he's getting is, well, you know, it's a new regime, and this regime has done very well tackling militants in Syria, so they can tackle Hezbollah in Lebanon. But let's not forget that Hezbollah was fighting to support President Assad in Syria. And so there is a lot of bad blood between Hezbollah and Sunnis in Syria. So you're in essence inviting Syrian militant groups, militias, you know,

the new Syrian army to enter into a country, which has terrible memories of Syrian occupation. And on top of that, you're asking them to come and take revenge against Hezbollah, which caused the death of thousands in Syria across the decade of the Civil War. I don't know who is putting that idea in President Trump's mind. They usually is something somewhere with these crazy ideas that he puts out.

But the good thing is that President Shutter of Syria is not interested. He's made it clear multiple times. This is not happening. And relations between the Lebanese President Lebanese government and the Syrian authorities right now is very good. It is the most positive that it's been forever. So that I just wanted to address that because it's just a crazy idea.

And let me tell you, if the Israelis can't deal with Hezbollah, the Syrian army can't do that. But I want to read to you a sentence, a quote that I really like by former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasid from 1957. That in essence sums up the reaction of a lot of people in Lebanon in the Middle East to everything that has transpired over the last four months. And this deal that we're now looking at as people wonder what the war was about. How is it possible that America shows again that if you apply enough pressure, it cuts and runs?

And I have to caveat all of this by saying, I'm not sure Gulf countries are going to be so keen on pouring money into Iran.

“I think the money aspect of it, a little bit like the Gaza Peace Board, the money isn't really there.”

I'm not sure that the barriers have been removed to allow sanctions, secondary sanctions, UN sanctions, etc. Have been removed to allow that money to pour into Iran. So I think Gulf countries are going to be very cautious. I also think that Benjamin Netanyahu still is going to try something. I don't know what before the elections to have some kind of victory as perik or as crazy as that sounds before the elections. Whether he goes it alone and tries to conduct another strike because he thinks that, you know, the umpteenth time that he tries will deliver a different result.

Or whether the Mossad is still very active, most likely on the ground in Iran trying to stir up an uprising at a time when the regime is weakened. I mean, I know they've survived the stalemate, but they're on very shaky foundations and they're about to face their worst enemy and it's not Israel and it's not America, it's the Iranian people. But one sentence, as I said, that I want to read about, you know, how people feel about the last few months, it goes like this.

The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves, which make the rest of us wonder at the possibility that we might be missing something.

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We appreciate your support and thank you for listening. Now back to the show. Well, let me take, let me take exception to that comment. It seems to me that based on this agreement and everything else we know, this is a clear cut stupid move. This whole war has been a clear cut stupid move.

Yeah, I was reminded a day or two ago by Peter Settler's classic comedy. As you know, that's a grand, actually a fan wicked sense over. It loses all its exports because of a cheaper American, compared to it's a tiny principality. It decides to invade America with 20 men in medieval suits of armour. In order to try and get us around the Americans and get tons of aid.

Obviously, not an exact analogy. No, no, I think it's an exact one. I said earlier today elsewhere that I suspect that the number of countries reading this deal, the number of countries wanting to have the US attack them is going to be a very long one. Yeah, it would go with the sort of comedic script of that.

“I think Trump thought he was in Dr. Strange Love and then he could just persuade Iran.”

He was mad enough that Iran would sort of tremble and cave in. And it didn't, it called Trump's bluster from day one. And I think, you know, he made sort of three basic mistakes here.

First his muddled war aims. Could they kept changing?

They ended up with really one war aim, which is reopening the state of Al-Muz, which of course was open before the war began. The second is, do not know thine enemy. He really missed him, really misunderstood Iranian, particularly shaped fundamentalist worldview and sort of glory in adversity that is part of the theocracy of this regime.

Third, alienate all your friends. It's what I call sort of three easy steps to lose a war.

That doesn't alter the fact that having reached this point,

“it's probably rational to do what something along the lines of what Trump is doing,”

which is to say, okay, the stick didn't work, let's switch to the carrot. And I don't know whether this $300 billion number is real or not. It sounds like one of those eye popping random numbers.

Trump plugs out of the air, never to be heard of again.

But there is clearly, we've moved into the inducement phase. And we will see, I mean, Kim will know better, but we will see, given Iran's, an ancient reputation for being extremely patient, detail-orientated, difficult negotiators. Whether those 60 days that the clock starts on Friday,

whether in those 60 days, Trump makes even more concessions, or whether, you know, Netanyahu finds opportunities to scuttle the whole thing. I mean, for sure, you know, this isn't even bigger sort of existential blow to him. And, you know, his life, his whole life's work is about overthrowing the Iranian regime and so for sure he's going to be looking for ways to unravel this situation.

But I agree with your question. I think this was a simple mistake.

By the way, whether the $300 billion comes or not.

By removing sanctions and allowing the Iranians to trade oil, that's $200 million a day. Over the 60 day, and which begins immediately, over the 60 day period, that's $12 billion. Before billion dollars in assets they're talking about releasing to the Iranians,

at some point during the 60 day period. That would amount to 12 plus 12 or 12 plus 24. Substantially more than was released to the Iranians under the JCPOA. So there's a cash win there and to Kim's earlier point. Surely any amount of money that flows into the central bank,

strengthens the government to some degree, and they can use it for some purposes,

and the agreement unlike the JCPOA.

The agreement explicitly says Iran can spend the money on whatever they want, which is quite different. Rose, I have a question for you, but before that, I'd like to add comment on one specific thing. Very quickly.

And two hours ago, the President attacked critics of the Iran deal, saying he no longer wants to be friends with quotes, some writers who he called stupid and bad people. I just want to, you know, if you felt took that personally. I do.

I take that personally. Yeah, I wish he'd been most specific, and it's like, it's like being on that list where you have denied the visa to Russia, and everybody goes, "Oh no, as publicly as they can, this is terrible." I'd like him to call me out by name as a stupid person.

Okay, well, well, keep working on that.

“Rose, from your perspective in America's middle, how does this look?”

I know it's the West, Rosa. I know you don't want to be in the middle. I know you want to be out there like Kevin Costner, and living that yellow stone line. I was going to wear my cowboy hat for this episode of Deep State Radio.

No, I could hear your horse walking around in a living room. Anyway, as you look at this, this looks like a huge catastrophic mistake, where even your neighbors out there in Wyoming. If they're maggots, they hate this. The New York Post this morning's headline was one word,

and it says, "I mean, the superhead was Trump delivers to Iran, and then it says, "A love bomb." They're calling it a love bomb. Even Lindsey Graham thinks it's terrible idea. I mean, it seems to me that in terms of US public acceptance,

everybody hates it.

“Everybody hates it. I think I agree with you, this to me seems like one of the more clear-cut examples of American stupidity,”

as opposed to complicated examples of American stupidity. That being said, I want to highlight the continuity between this and less more complicated, less clear-cut examples of American stupidity. Our war isn't Afghanistan and Iraq, less at a whole lot longer. We're a whole lot more complicated. We didn't repeat all of them mistakes, I'd add listed three.

You know, one, not being clear about your goals, to misunderstanding your enemy and three alienating your friends.

and we had somewhat clear goals, at least at the beginning,

“although they kept morphing as our initially clear goals turned out to be irrational.”

And Prämistan, various mistaken assumptions. We sure did not know our enemy and either of those conflicts. They both turned out poorly for the United States. They involved massive expenditures of US, money, and blood, not to speak of massive casualties inflicted on both civilian populations

and the militaries of other countries and entities. In that sense, I actually think that Trump's Iran war is not that unusual.

This has been the trajectory of the United States wars in recent decades.

Either we pick on somebody who is very far from our own size. And we do these at a lightning in and out, so we declare victory and we're good. Or we engage in these sort of protracted, or in this case, maybe short, maybe unprotracted, poorly thought through conflicts in which we have vastly underestimated our adversary and failed to really think through whether we have the ability to accomplish

what we claim our objectives are. So in that sense, this is sort of nothing new. And I don't mean to let Trump off the hook by that.

By saying, hey, look, he's not exactly the first US president in the last couple of decades

to start stupid wars that end up being massively destructive both for the United States and for other populations. That doesn't let him off the hook. This is, as I said, this is simply stupid and even more clear cut way as opposed to a, as opposed to the clouds of obfuscation that surrounded, for instance, the Iraq war,

where at least George W. Bush made an effort to, and successfully enlisted a lot of allies. Some of whom later had to say, oops, yeah, we sure were played for suckers, or we participated in playing the recipe for suckers. So in that sense, there's nothing all that new here. I would predict, you know, looking ahead 60 days. I don't even think we're going to get to 60 days.

You know, I don't think it's going, if I, if I were in the political betting markets here, I would say, you know, give it, give it three weeks. We will either see Netanyahu do something that completely scuttles this, because, of course, the memorandum of understanding that we have been led to believe is the one that is going to be formally adopted on Friday. Israel is not a party that it binds the signers of that MOU to the extent that it binds anybody.

And we already know that Trump doesn't regard himself as being bound by anything whatsoever. But even if the U.S. and the Iranians consider themselves bound, Netanyahu's just not a party to this. So it's not particularly clear to me, and his incentives are completely different from both the Iranians and, of course, the U.S. is incentives at this point.

“So I think either that will happen, you know, or something will just annoy Donald Trump,”

and he can't control himself. You know, that clearly given that nobody likes this war, and even his own voters see it as a capitulation, and are very unhappy about the impact it has had on the U.S. economy, even his own base. Even if nobody likes this war, Trump thrives on constant drama and constant attention, and he likes to and needs to maintain, create and maintain constant air of threat threat.

Danger, panic, and drama. And he doesn't like it when things are just chugging along quietly. So if everything is going well and Netanyahu hasn't scuttled this, or some other incident has not occurred that scuttles this, I think Trump will find a way to scuttle it himself. You know, he'll take umbrids at something somebody says or does, and that'll be that.

So I wouldn't, I would neither hold out hopes that this agreement in its current form will create any kind of enduring peace.

“Uh, not nor, however, do I think that we'll have a return to full-scale conflict, because Trump doesn't want that either.”

I think I think wheels, but I, I would predict that it will spend at least the next four or five months. In the same state, we've been in for the last couple of months of a sort of constant. Oh, pieces near were good. Oh, no, no, we're going to obliterate their civilization. Oh, actually we're all good friends. It's fine, and I think that's we're just going to stay in that state of, you know, every week or so. There's going to be a little exciting new saga in the Donald Trump reality show that he unfortunately has has turned the entire world into unwilling, unwilling participants in his reality show.

So as the chance of attractive surprise, so let's have a fan bonus in the world, just at 18-17.

“Well, I think that that prediction seems pretty good one, and if those of you who are following us are also, you know, betting on polymarket, I'd certainly, I certainly endorse roses battle that we don't endorse gambling here of any sort.”

You know, one of the provisions of the agreement is that no side will make threats towards the other side. And in revealing the agreement Trump said, well, if it doesn't work, we're going to blow them up. So, you know, I mean, he violated it in announcing it. Well, yeah, but you know. Well, yes.

That's a chronic signature apparently twice on frankly confused about this.

Yes, like auto pen on last weekend by JD, who's going to get tossed under the bus for this.

“But, you know, Kim, you know, what are the big glaring holes in this whole thing?”

And Rosa mentioned is, you know, these rallies aren't party to this. Hezbo is not party to this. And the Israelis have said in the past 24 hours, we are not leaving Southern Lebanon. You're in Lebanon, right? Now, what's the expectation? There's a lot of anxiety in Lebanon and also a lot of trauma.

I just want to highlight that the big losers in all of this are the Lebanese people. The Palestinians and Gaza, but also in the West Bank. The Iranian people who, despite everything, you know, held on to that promise of Donald Trump in January, help is on the way.

“And I think many of them really did believe that there was a very well thought through plan between America and Israel about how to execute this from the, from the air and from the ground.”

And the mood in Iran is one of, you know, despair and helplessness, but I predict that people will take to the streets at some point again. In, you know, don't get me started on, you know, what is happening in the West Bank with the settlers, you know, putting villages on fire.

We've never seen this level of violence, Gaza barely gets mentioned anymore.

But in Lebanon, David, I live through 15 years of civil war in this country. And I don't think that we've seen this level of destruction, wholesale destruction of whole towns in this country. And we've seen it in Syria and this war, we've seen it in Gaza. And there's really some made no secret that they're turning south Lebanon into Gaza. It's really devastating. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm a very grounded person and, you know, we all carry trauma around and somehow, you know, it, I keep my center. But I have to say that this is deeply, deeply painful to watch the complete destruction of whole villages in controlled explosions done systematically the way it's being done.

You know, a fifth or maybe up to quarter of Lebanon's population is displaced in a country that is pretty much bankrupt. On the positive side, if we can look at any silver linings, we do have a great president. I never thought in my life that, as a Lebanese, I would say, I'm proud of my president. I thought he gave an incredible interview to CNN a couple of weeks ago about what Lebanon is trying to do, what he is trying to do, you know, engaging with Israel. You know, it might be a fool's errand, but we've tried everything else, so let's try this. It's very much been a request of the United States as well.

And, you know, Lebanon has acquiesced and is trying to engage in good faith in these negotiations. The other positive is that we have leadership in Syria. It is no longer the Assad regime, and that is one of the key weaknesses for Iran as well. The land corridor from Syria, from Iran through Iraq, into Syria to Lebanon is now broken. And so, to me, that is, that is a big weakness for the Iranian regime. It's very difficult as well for Hezbollah. What I'm hearing from people is that Hezbollah is a spent force.

There's no longer any battles against Israeli soldiers in the South. There's no fight. Israelis are just, you know, moving forward. They're taking towns. They're blowing up towns. And yes, Hezbollah has new, you know, drones and new technology where they, you know, today they wounded five Israeli soldiers, one of them seriously.

So, I hear a lot of concern, even from supporters of Hezbollah, that actually that sort of resistance group is, you know, is no longer capable of doing anything.

“And then generally, the country, I would say, is 70% opposed to any continuation of Hezbollah's role,”

carrying of weapons, you know, we're done with that. We want to move on from this. And people are done with Iran. People are done with being, you know, a football between Iran and Israel. People feel that, you know, we're negotiating with two guns to our heads. One is really and one Iranian.

You know, we have Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps members, you know, running the show here for Hezbollah.

And, you know, the president is speaking out against that, and then being threatened with violence by Hezbollah. So, beware of small nations, where, you know, all of this, actually that we're seeing play out now, started in 1982, as I write in my forthcoming book, when the Israelis invaded Lebanon, they thought they were going to remake the region. And instead, they gave us the birth of Hezbollah and Iran's ability to export its revolution and thwart Pax Americana. And so, that was the weak link then, and it is continuously the weak link. And so, today, yes, when President Trump thinks he has this grand bargain,

this grand deal that is going to, you know, bring peace to the region. You know, Lebanon is the weak point, because absolutely Benjamin Netanyahu

is maybe going to take, you know, some measures to make sure he doesn't upset Trump too much too quickly. He might not bomb a route again for a while, but in South Lebanon, there is no withdrawal. There is no withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon any time soon. And it's important to look at what is happening inside Israel on the election front. You know, Benjamin Netanyahu is being pounded from the left, if you will. I mean, they're not leftists, but from his left. You know, Gabi Eisencott, yeah, I hear La Pied, NAFTAli Bennett, accusing him of being weak and caving to Trump,

and making clear that no, you know, we are not going to withdraw from Lebanon, and we want the disarmament of Hezbollah.

“So I see I totally agree with with Rosa. I think that either, as I said also at the beginning, either Benjamin Netanyahu does something that blows the sub,”

or Trump gets annoyed with the fact that the Iranians aren't delivering, because they're not really going to deliver. They're not going to change overnight. They're going to try to drag this out. They're not going to comply. They're not going to agree to, to, to inspections. And I really don't see this love bomb materializing, because, you know, we could try this, right? And we've tried everything with Iran, but we've tried sanctions. Yeah, we could try the love bomb. I don't see the Saudis and the Emirates love bombing the Iranians.

No, of course they're not. But I would, I would caution against taking any of the thing Trump says to literally, he just wants it over. He just wants to turn the page. And frankly, if he could pay the Iranians and ex dollars and say,

keep your regime, you'll never be a democracy. He'd say fine. It's what he did Venezuela. He doesn't care.

“But I think there are limitations on what you can do in terms of funneling money to, to Iran,”

even with this, with this Congress and because of this. There may be, but, but getting rid of the sanctions temporarily through the Treasury Department, as this is explicit, saying, and returning some of these assets, I think, is something the executive branch will be able to do. Anyway, Ed, and as we wrap this up here, I'd like to ask you a little bit of a quick question. You wrote a column about the difficulties, Trump is having in the net young relationship.

This morning, he was saying, well, we disagree on this, but they're still a great partner. Clearly, there's the possibility, as Kim just said, for Israel to blow this up. They're not a party to this. And clearly, a lot of the pressure and Israel thinks that this war should go on. That Trump is being weak by not saying it should go on. And what it suggests to me, and it goes back to Kim's point about how a book opens,

is that maybe Netanyahu has miscalculated on Iran in a profound way for a long time.

And he thought, okay, this is good. We're now going to make Iran the bad guy.

“And there was a moment where, you know, they attacked Hezbollah. There was change in Syria.”

There was conflict with the hooties, where people were like, he's winning. They beat Hamas supposedly, they beat Hamas and Gaza. They're saying, well, they're winning. But today, it doesn't look like Israel's winning. Israel's in the worst relationship in modern history with its primary ally. Iran is getting money pumped into it.

The United States has determined it can't beat Iran fighting a war. That thing is out of its quiver of arrows. And so it seems to me that if the U.S. Israeli relationship is in a bad place now, and if Trump and B.B. are in a bad place, as he said near come, it's only likely to get worse. Yeah, I mean, this is also sort of subject to Trump's variability, you know, because he's got to very, very different cancels under his Trumpian umbrella.

You know, one or the America first, the crowd, and a lot of his base who are really surprised and alienated by this war of choice in the Middle East.

And that went against everything Trump had really stood for for more than a decade. But on the other hand, he's got a lot of hawks behind him who were very excited. There was this brief sort of near-conservative revivalism in the early stages of this war. That, you know, that they had converted Trump to being an interventionist. He was calling for regime change and doing so on the basis of protecting Iran's people.

That he would have their backs. So he's got these two camps that are, you know, pretty irreconcilable.

They have radically different world views.

And I don't think he's ever going to permanently split with one of them. So, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't rule out that there'll be some, there'll be some faint back towards Netanyahu. But I would rule out that he's going to realign with Netanyahu's lifelong aim, which is to remove the Iranian regime Trump. Does not want any of that. I mean, he's made this very clear.

His war aim is opening the straight-of-arms and not having this sort of damages in Iran's hand over the global economy over the U.S. Interest rates midterm elections and every business person he talks to in his manic sort of 24/7 phone calls that he makes. He's just been hearing a lot of shit about this war and he doesn't want any more of it.

“And so I think he might, you know, make nice with Netanyahu in other ways.”

But I don't think there's any offer out here for Netanyahu who has put all his chips on Operation Epic Fury. And it's blown up in his face. And so I think at the very least, you know, his, he's a cornered politician. He's going to be thinking of ways quite radical ways, perhaps, or quite cunning ways of trying to get out of this one. You know, he is the Houdini of Israel.

But it's hard to think what they would be right now. He won't. He won't. It's a BB's over. But he's going to be replaced by one of these people. Their policies may not change much, but the guy at the top is going to change.

But Rosa, as a final comment here, just picking up on what Cameron said, I just want to push back a little bit on your point that it's going to fester on like it has. And I don't want to put words in your mouth.

“But I think it's extremely unlikely that between now and the election,”

Trump will do anything that will push up gas prices dramatically. He'll very unlikely to do anything that sends the markets tumbling. He does not believe that he can use force in a big way and gain a benefit from it. He needs to keep the straight open. I think just listening to you guys.

He's heard that doing a deal where he capitulate to Iran and give them a lot of money and don't really get anything in return is a bad deal for weeks. But he's doing it anyway because I don't think he has a choice. I think this is the only deal that he could strike that meets the political needs of the moment in the US.

So I'm just pushing back a little and you can push back.

Yeah, and here's the reason I would push back.

“I think you're falling into the trap of regarding him as a rational actor and he's just not.”

He's so utterly lacking in self discipline that he consistently fails to do things that are clearly and obviously in his own self interest. I think you're right.

Trump wants to, wants to put this behind him. He wants the economy to great. He just wants this to go away.

I think that's right. I also think he's so lacking in self discipline that he will not be able to control himself.

“If somebody makes him mad in some way, which people always inevitably do, right, he will not be able to stop himself from spouting off some.”

Oh, now they've said this terrible thing or they've done this terrible thing. Now I'm going to show him.

You know, I'm going to, you know, we're going back to war. I order everyone back. He can't control himself.

And I don't think the people around him can fully control him either. You know, so, so I don't think you're analysis of what is in his interest is wrong. I mean, clearly it's in his interest to make whatever concessions he needs to make put as good a face on it as he can possibly put on it. Move on and hope nobody remembers this by the time we get to November off. Like, of course, that's in his interest. But I also don't think we can assume that he's going to consistently act in his own interest in any in any way, shape or form, which depending on the day of the week.

Sometimes works out well for others. Sometimes works out incredibly badly for others. So, you know, I mean, his current war aim getting the streets open again. You know, involves undoing the self-inflicted damage created by pursuing his idiotic pursuit of his original, original war aim. And he'll keep trying to sell this as some kind of victory. It's low information voters and that, unfortunately, as many of his base will believe him and we'll think, oh, yeah, you know, we did it. We reopen the straight. You know, we sure told you sure showed them.

You know, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't put the odds of this being over at, you know, any better than random chance. You know, my, I would draw this, I would draw a distinction between it being over and it being resolved. If I don't think it's going to be resolved in any last encounter. I'm going to say neither we're not resolved.

“Right. I just, I just, I don't think more war is an option for him, but I believe Trump and Netanyahu are in much weaker positions than we've seen them in many years.”

And I don't even, I don't think we're used to seeing them as weak as this, and I think they have fewer options than they may have in the past. We shall see. I mean, the other people in this equation are the Iranians, and I wouldn't, I would not put it past them to overreach and make a big mistake that will ignite this again. Maybe we shall, we shall definitely see one as your book coming out, Kim. October. October. All right. Well, we will certainly be back long before that to discuss it. And, and hopefully the world will remain very fairly orderly. So you don't have to keep writing it, really writing it between now and that.

I have a great update towards the end, which I think will stand the test of time. Because three, four pages that are just left blank, fill in, provide your own update. Anyway, we look forward to that. Thank you, Kim. Be safe. Thank you. Add be safe as you're moving in. Heavy lifting is bad. Ben from the knee. You two rose out there in Wyoming. There's a lot of wild animals. Be safe. And we'll see you all soon.