Trump ‘grasping at straws’ in Iran negotiations, possible re-escalation: Foreign policy expert

0:00 Let's bring in Shelby Holliday,

0:01 Wall Street Journal senior video and national security correspondent,

0:04 and Emma Ashford, senior fellow at the Stimson

0:07 Center and columnist at Foreign Policy magazine.

0:09 Glad to have you both here.

0:10 So, Shelby, you first.

0:12 What's your sense of which way the president is leaning today?

0:15 Is it towards continuing strikes, resuming them, I should say, or towards peace?

0:20 I mean, what did he say that if they misbehave or do something bad?

0:23 I think what's the definition there?

0:25 Right.

0:26 I think he's faced with two things.

0:27 If Iran escalates, if Iran, for example, attacks a U .S.

0:30 Navy ship or its proxy group,

0:32 the Houthis in Yemen start attacking ships in the Red Sea, then the U .S.

0:36 will respond.

0:37 I think that's an automatic tripwire.

0:39 You could assume that we'll see strikes after that.

0:42 But beyond that, if negotiations go nowhere,

0:44 the Strait of Hormuz remains closed,

0:46 Iran refuses to give up the nuclear dust as he calls it,

0:49 then he may have to do something.

0:51 He may think he has to do something to break the stalemate.

0:53 And so he's faced with, you know, do I escalate to try to de-escalate?

0:58 Yeah.

1:00 And I think that's what we hear him

1:00 talking out loud about and thinking about right now.

1:02 We know he was briefed last week on options by the U .S.

1:05 Central Command commander,

1:06 and there are options on the table should he choose to move forward.

1:09 Now, keep in mind, as we've reported and others have as well,

1:13 Iran has been digging out missiles and missile

1:15 launchers from its tunnels since the ceasefire began.

1:18 So both sides are rearming.

1:20 We've heard Secretary Hegseth say many times, we're locked and loaded,

1:23 you know, we're ready to go at a moment's notice.

1:26 And so it really, it's not hard to see how this could really escalate.

1:29 If there's is it clear he's negotiating in good faith or is

1:47 he signaling he may not be prepared to budge on his demands?

1:51 You know, I think what we've seen from the White House

1:55 is that they are sort of all over the map on this.

1:57 Two, three weeks back when we saw J .D.

2:00 Vance and others go out to Islamabad,

2:02 it really seemed like the administration was

2:04 engaging with the Iranians in good faith.

2:06 And then over the last couple of weeks,

2:08 as they have gone through with putting this blockade in place,

2:12 they seem to have retreated back to this notion

2:15 that if we can just hurt the Iranians a little more,

2:18 then maybe we won't have to engage in negotiations.

2:21 And so it seems to me that the White House really doesn't want any of this.

2:25 They don't want this to escalate again.

2:27 They don't want to take the deal that's on the table,

2:30 and there really aren't any other good options.

2:32 And so they're sort of grasping at straws.

2:34 I think the blockade is the latest thing that they're grasping at, but it's

2:37 not at all clear that it's actually going to produce any better results.

2:40 But Shelby, the president said on social media that he quote,

2:44 cannot imagine Iran's proposals would be acceptable in that they

2:48 have not yet paid a big enough price.

2:51 So what is the ultimate price then that Trump can ask or even force Iran to pay?

2:57 That's a good question.

2:59 Forcing them is a different thing than bringing them

3:00 to the table and getting them to actually do it.

3:02 But still, the U .S.

3:03 wants Iran to stop enriching uranium and creating nuclear material.

3:09 They want Iran to stop producing missiles,

3:11 stop producing drones, stop funding proxy groups.

3:15 There's a laundry list of things that the U .S.

3:17 is asking that so far are unacceptable to Iran.

3:19 And, as we saw, there was a list of things

3:21 Iran wants that are totally unacceptable to the U .S.

3:24 What can the president force?

3:25 He would have to use military force to go

3:28 in at this point and get that nuclear material.

3:31 And he's talked about it.

3:32 And that still seems to be his red line.

3:33 He said, we're going to get it one way or the other.

3:35 He said that just a few days ago.

3:37 He hasn't seemed to move off of that position.

3:39 But it is something that you wouldn't just be

3:40 able to fly in and get without Iran's approval.

3:44 It would take a huge military effort to do that.

3:47 So right now, the two sides are just so far apart.

3:49 It's hard to see anything changing,

3:51 specifically shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

3:53 There was an attack earlier today.

3:55 It's just very hard to see anything

3:57 moving or changing without some sort of action.

4:00 Emma, Jared Kushner, Steve Whitcoff, J .D.

4:04 Vance, to your point of a couple, three weeks ago.

4:07 They've been more or less on the front lines of these in-person talks.

4:10 But how serious are the negotiations if the secretary

4:13 of state is not playing a more prominent public role?

4:16 Can these talks ever lead to a lasting peace deal,

4:19 particularly after Iran said early on that they're

4:22 not going to negotiate with Witkoff and Kushner?

4:26 Yeah.

4:27 I mean, one of the very interesting things about this entire

4:29 process is that the secretary of state has been almost entirely absent,

4:32 not Not absent from perhaps the conduct of the war on this side of the Atlantic,

4:37 but certainly absent from negotiations.

4:39 He's not even necessarily going out and talking to allies.

4:42 He's sticking very close to the president's side in social

4:45 settings as well as in sort of briefings and meetings.

4:49 And it seems like, in many ways, it's the sort of Wyckoff and Kushner duo

4:54 that the president very much seems to trust,

4:56 even if the Iranians certainly don't.

4:58 And then J .D.

4:59 Vance, who I think is trying to thread a very fine needle here.

5:02 He, for his future political ambitions,

5:04 really does want and need this war to end.

5:07 But he is sort of chained to what the president himself wants.

5:11 And what we saw again in Islamabad a few weeks

5:13 ago was that he kept having to sort of call home.

5:16 We seem to have abandoned the in-person diplomacy, in part, I think,

5:19 because the Iranians realized that Trump is the ultimate decider

5:22 in this case and they're not going to get anything from anybody else.

5:26 But, Emma, if you open the street,

5:29 what's the incentive to come to the table on uranium, which is the main point?

5:35 I mean, this is why I think last at the end

5:37 of last week We had the Iranians offer this, basically,

5:40 you lift your blockade, we'll lift our blocks on transit through the strait,

5:44 and we'll all sort of go about our business.

5:47 Now, for the US, this actually does have benefits.

5:49 It would reopen the flow of oil globally and gas.

5:52 It would help with some of the economic pain that is really starting to emerge.

5:56 It would obviously help the Iranians as well.

5:59 It wouldn't resolve the underlying uranium question.

6:02 The Iranians must have assessed that perhaps

6:04 the White House was desperate enough to end

6:06 the economic pain that they might go for this and defer the nuclear question.

6:10 It looks like the White House isn't willing to do that.

6:13 Yeah.

6:14 Shelby, you co-wrote a report,

6:16 and it was on the administration now racing to accomplish

6:19 the Iran mission before it runs out of munitions.

6:22 You say the precise stock of interceptors that's classified.

6:26 But what more have you learned about the U .S.

6:32 THE U .S.

6:33 HAD A LIMITED STOCKPILE OF MUNITIONS,

6:37 PARTICULARLY DEFENSIVE MUNITIONS, AND IRAN HAS A LIMITIONS,

6:41 AND IT WAS A RACE LIKE WE SAW WITH THE 12-DAY WAR OF WHO CAN LAST THE LONGEST,

6:47 WHO CAN FIRE MOST MISSILES, WHO CAN DEFEND MOST MISSILES.

6:51 NOW THAT WE ARE AT A CEASE-FIRE, SEVERAL NEWS OUTLETS HAVE TAKEN STOCK OF WHERE

6:55 munitions are and how many have been burned.

6:58 The U .S.

6:59 has burned thousands of offensive and defensive munitions,

7:02 and that's one big reason why I think you don't

7:04 see President Trump so eager to start the fighting again,

7:07 because the depletion of missiles, doesn't just impact a war with Iran.

7:10 It impacts power projection in the Pacific, of potential conflict with China.

7:15 You might need those munitions for other parts of the world.

7:18 And the U .S.

7:19 is really trying to focus more on the Western Hemisphere and the Pacific.

7:22 And so to spend all of these munitions over in the Middle East is,

7:28 to some analysts and some in the government, a problem.

7:30 I will say that the president is he's facing

7:34 a A DIFFICULT CHALLENGE BECAUSE IF YOU DO NOT, IF THE REGIME STAYS INTACT,

7:39 AND THIS IS SOMETHING SECRETARY HEGSETH SAID DURING

7:42 HEARINGS LAST WEEK AND I THOUGHT WAS INTERESTING,

7:44 IF THEY RETAIN THE WILL TO CONTINUE REBUILDING AND REARMING AND REARMING,

7:48 AND AND REENRICHING THEIR URANIUM, THEN EVEN IF YOU KNOCK THEM OUT,

7:52 EVEN IF YOU WIPE OUT THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS

7:54 OF SITES AND BOMB THEM THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF TIMES,

7:57 THEY HAVE THAT WILL TO COME BACK.

7:58 SO THIS IS POTENTIALLY SOMETHING THE U .S.

8:00 WOULD BE FACED WITH AND NEED TO DO ALL OVER AGAIN

8:03 IN JUST A FEW YEARS AND THAT'S ANOTHER BIG CONCERN THAT IS VERY

8:05 MUCH A CONCERN AND WE CERTAINLY DON'T DOUBT THEIR DETERMINATION SO SHELBY

8:08 AND EMMA LADIES THANK YOU BOTH SO MUCH THANK YOU THE TRUMP