How alarmed should we be, especially considering all the ongoing issues around the Strait of Hormuz?

I mean, I think it's made a very difficult situation even more complicated.

And while we seem to have dodged a bullet for the first five or six months of this war, keeping oil prices relatively constant as a consequence of three or four different kinds of buffers or cushions, you're now entering a period where I think the oil market could considerably tighten.

Whether or not we're on the cusp of $150 a barrel, $200 barrel oil, unclear to me.

But some of the safety valves, it seems to me, are not functioning.

Number one, you now have a double choke point.

You have some operational Navy successes in getting crewed through.

Yeah, I mean, it's

also becomes a little hard to call them anti-Semitic, as Smotrich did.

Yeah, I mean, look, the context here, I think, is very important.

You're talking about an Israeli government that over the last four years has approved 104 settlements.

When every Israeli government from 1996 until the current Israeli government came into being in 2022 approved only one.

You're talking about an Israeli government, Bezalel Asmochich and Itamar Ben-Gavir, racist supremacists, who basically have committed themselves to fundamentally laying the groundwork, if not the annexation of the West Bank.

And you're talking about a degree of settler violence.

Mike Huckabee called this settler terrorism.

He doesn't seem to be able to hang on to that as clearly.

It would be interesting, but also concerning on who and how this power vacuum will be filled.

Yeah.

Before we leave Egypt, the administration, as Scott Besson said in his speech, threatened that by the end of this week, a major financial institution would be sanctioned by the United States.

And they've identified Egypt's second largest bank, which has outlets in Egypt.

And clearly targeted against Dubai, which is the major money launderer and entrepot for transactions with Iran.

You know, the power vacuum, I mean, I have to say, stepping back, the problem for this region to some degree is that there's really nobody in charge.

I mean, the United States has deployed its power recklessly and foolishly.

I

How do you see the war today from where it started?

Look, and Dan, thanks again for having me.

I worked and voted for Republicans and Democrats.

You can consider this a partisan statement if you want, but it reflects an analytical reality.

If the war ended today, epic fury would be nothing short of an epic disaster.

most of the ostensible objectives of the war.

And remember, they've wandered all over the parking lot, even though the organizing principle appears to be constraints, restraints, ending Iran's putative search for at least to become a nuclear weapons threshold state.

How do you see that?

Yeah.

And number two, to accept, uh, significant Iranian control over the straits through a negotiation, which he clearly does not wanna do.

And as a consequence, since neither of these have worked and changed Iran's core calculations, particularly with respect to the straits, he's fallen back on this economic outcast, right? In an effort to literally cut Iran off from the global economy and asphyxiate, I think that's the word he used, Iran's economy.

Look, if the United States were prepared to essentially exercise, in this case, the economic nuclear option, that is to say, to cut Iran's major trading partners off from the dollar, deny them access to US banks.

If in fact the administration was prepared to cut these countries off from the US financial system and the dollar and keep them cut off, over time, I think, uh, yeah, I think the administration could break the Iranian economy.

Would that change the calculation of the guys running the railroad in Tehran? I really don't know.

Why would they be doing this now?

Because I think the president is stuck.

What do we do now? What's the way out of it? What would you say? And I suppose I'm wondering whether you would say, "Yes, actually, this, this economic strangulation idea is, is the way forward."

Yeah, I mean, look, first of all, I, I'm not sure I'd be talking to Marco Rubio.

He is the secretary of state as well as the national security advisor, but unlike the half dozen secretaries of state I worked for, uh, he's MIA in terms of managing and playing a central role in this crisis.

No secretary of state in the modern history of the United States would have ever agreed, I, I think he has done it voluntarily, not to be the point of contact beneath the president in order to manage this conflict.

It's extraordinary.

Secretaries of state become the authoritative voices of the president.

They manage the envoys.

I wonder when you look back, do you sometimes think that you and the team squandered that? That, that you had an opportunity to, to sort out all these problems and maybe that we wouldn't be here today looking at all this mess if you'd taken the opportunity that America had then?

Am I reading this somewhat correctly?

Thanks for having me here, Joe.

I think you're reading it the way we all are.

You have a frustrated, angry president that in a war of choice has gotten himself into a fix with no easy way out.

I'm old enough to remember Vietnam and what LBJ said in 68.

He felt like a hitchhiker in a Texas hailstorm.

He couldn't run, he couldn't hide, and he couldn't make it stop.

And my guess is it has been calculated throughout.

Um, so it's a scenario where there's terms that the Iranians are not budging from that I just cannot see Trump accepting.

I mean, I think that's right, and I think that it reflects, um, as far as the administration's concerned, probably, uh, the least bad option, um, in the weeks and months ahead.

Um, massive escalation, uh, I think is, uh, something the president does not wanna do.

And as you mentioned, um, I can't see the administration cutting a deal with the Iranians on the, on the core issue, which is control and leverage over the strait.

So if no me-mis-massive escalation and no diplomacy, then it, it really is trying to find a set of, um, instruments that will weaken the regime over time.

Uh, and I think Scott Bessent hinted about this last week and suggested that early this week, um, the administration was going to announce a series of economic measures that, um, constitute, my words here, not his, um, a chokehold on the Iranian economy.

I don't think sanctions against individual leaders or Iranian banks are gonna do it.

They're also screwed

That's now three months ago.

Well, yeah, I mean, I think, look, this is the problem of the flawed national security decision-making structure.

I was around for Bush 41, which was in the first Iraq war, which married ends and means in a campaign relatively short, pushed Saddam out of Kuwait, didn't get rid of the regime.

That would have involved a march toward Baghdad, Bush 41, and my former boss, James Baker, weren't interested in that, I was also around for the first four or five months of Bush 43, which ended up being the two longest wars in American history, where the standard for victory was never could we win conventionally, but when would we leave and what would we leave behind? But that you could rationalize somehow, that war was somehow a product of an idiosyncratic, extraordinary attack on the United States in 9-11.

and the Bush administration's initial four months in Afghanistan was basically a success.

They simply reached too far by attacking Iraq.

Here, there's no explanation for this.

What's your reaction to that?

So can we even say that that peace process has begun because Israel's still striking the territory?

Uh, the answer is, uh, no.

Remember, we're talking even by Israeli stats now, including the Palesti- uh, Hamas-controlled Palestinian Ministry of Health, we're talking about 70,000 Palestinians killed.

And even if 20 to 25,000 are Hamas fighters, you're dealing with an exponential rise of civilian deaths, right? And it's a cautionary tale which, you know, i- in this region, it's more often a case of where American ideas of war-making and peace-making go to die.

I mean, I've worked for administration Jimmy Carter to Bush 43.

It's rare that the United States achieves a success in this region, in large part because for Washington, the states, stakes are never really existential.

For these smaller non-state actors, Hamas, Hezbollah, Israel, Iran, it's not a question of political legacy or re-election only.

If Netanyahu is voted out of power in October, where does that leave the US and its war with Iran and its involvement in Gaza?

So what's going on, Aaron?

I mean, look, it, all of this dysfunction flows from the, uh, cruel reality that the president launched a war of choice on February 28th, uh, overestimating American mili- military capacity to bend Iran to his will on one hand, and undern- underestimating Iran's capacity, not just to survive.

And we've watched a transition from divine power, where clearly Ali Khamenei was killed, Supreme Leader, killed in the first day of, of the military action.

Divine power seems to be, have given way to hard power.

We don't know, we don't know what the role of Mojtaba is.

We don't know how badly injured he is.

All kinds of crazy reports he's in a hospital in Russia recuperating.

Mm-hmm

Will American officials comply?

Probably not.

Look, the Iranians think they're winning.

And six months into this war, I frankly, analytically, have no reason to suggest that they're wrong.

They've made a decision to weaponize geography and exert leverage and control over the Straits of Hormuz.

Those Straits are now Iran's new nuclear weapon.

And frankly, it's much more advantageous than any nuclear weapon could be in terms of creating their influence, attaining sovereignty and turning the Straits into an ATM machine.

Yeah, so how long? Especially when Iran says things like the US can never threaten them again when the president is standing up there and almost doing that every other day.

Uh, how is this reporting, which seems pretty well sourced from lots of different news organizations, being absorbed and processed in the Middle East? Because if America is an under-resourced ally right now trying to continue to prosecute this war, bets are gonna be hedged.

I mean, I think it's mus- Thanks for having me, by the way, uh, Major.

A- and just before we start, I've worked for Republicans and Democrats and voted for them.

Um, I just think it's another indication of not thinking through the kind of campaign that the Pentagon was going to wage.

Uh, and again, if you're pr- if you're, uh, Xi in China and Putin in Ukraine, I mean, you're rubbing your hands together.

Every time a TLAM, a Tomahawk missile, is launched, or a Patriot or THAAD interceptor, it's one fewer the Europeans can buy from us, uh, in an effort to supply Ukraine.

And, and I'm sure Xi is, is wondering and, um, delighted by the fact that the administration's now bogged down in a seemingly never ending war, uh, with Iran.

How is that being worked through?

Mm.

I mean, I, I think it's, uh, it's hard for me to say.

Spent most of my l- professional life around negotiations which involve, if they're, if they're going to endure, unlike the memorandum of understanding which was signed in June '17, which didn't last very long, it became a memorandum of misunderstanding, they have to reflect a balance of interest.

That is to say both sides need to, need to come away not spinning victory, but each side needs to come away with a genuine win that they convince themselves that the negotiations actually serve their interests.

Right now, I just don't see how you split the difference between how the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, particularly its naval elements which are having a major influence on the disposition of the straits, how you f- split the difference between what Tehran wants and what the Trump administration, uh, can accept.

The Iranians have weaponized geography.

Uh, you talk to any of the, uh, formidable experts on Iran and they will say to you that the real test of victory and success in this war is no longer the nuclear issue.

... conciliation, threat, conciliation?

I don't know if deception operations do work like this in negotiations or that's not how things are done.

Well, I mean, it...

When you say...

I mean, so the hypothesis or the assumption would be that this was psychological op- uh, a ps- a s- what they call a PSYOPS, a bluff, an effort to produce a change in Iran's behavior.

I mean, if it doesn't produce a change in Iran's behavior, then, and Trump cannot possibly know, I think, whether it has or hasn't, my, my sense is it, it hasn't and it won't.

Um, then it is, it, it essentially was, um, a reflection of the frustration and box that he is in.

There are two options that he will not take.

[laughs]

I don't know if deception operations do work like this in negotiations or that's not how things are done.

Well, I mean, it ...

When you say ...

I mean, so the hypothesis or the assumption would be that this was psychological op- uh, a ps- a s- what they call a PSYOPS, a bluff, an effort to produce a change in Iran's behavior.

I mean, if it doesn't produce a change in Iran's behavior, then, and Trump cannot possibly know, I think, whether it has or hasn't, my, my sense is it, it hasn't and it won't, um, then it is, it, it essentially was, um, a reflection of the frustration and box that he is in.

There are two options that he will not take.

Or put it this way, he is reluctant to take.

[laughs]

How much leverage or credibility does Trump have with Iran at this point?

I think he's really come up short, uh, Wolf, in, in both departments.

I, I just don't think there are happy endings here.

I mean, I, I'm old enough to remember, uh, Vietnam.

This is not Vietnam, but I remember what John, LBJ said about Vietnam.

He said he felt like a, uh, [clears throat] a hitchhiker in a Texas hailstorm.

He couldn't run, he couldn't hide, and he can't make it stop.

Why, why is that so significant?

All of this adds up to something that is highly unlikely to work, argues Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment.

Given the leaders we have, and Hamas and Israel's red lines and Donald Trump's distractions, this plan is tethered, frankly, to a galaxy far, far away, rather than to the realities back here on planet Earth.

The red lines that each Hamas and Israel have defined are red lines I don't think Hamas is prepared to cross without extraordinary deliverables on their end, and one that I know the current government of Israel with less than three months before an election is

prepared to

cross.

Given the gap in what we're hearing from Hamas and Israel, is this actually a deal? Is this implementable in some form?

I mean, I don't see it, and thanks for having me.

Look, if you had real leaders, uh, in Israel, um, Hamas making decisions that were in the best interests of the Palestinian people, and leadership in Washington, uh, prepared to spend a lot of time on this, I think you could, you might be able to see some results.

But the reality is we don't have those leaders.

I mean, this, this 15-point plan, and by the way, this was, this plan was laid out by the, um, board of peace, um, um, mediator Nicolas M- Lado- Nadov, uh, in May.

Some revisions were made.

I think, in large part, timing has a lot to do with effect.

Uh, is this even realistic for them to be, uh, taking receipt of weapons and dealing with that? H- is, is that even practical or possible?

The stakes are high and it seems like we're at a point where Trump and Netanyahu's goals for the war in Iran, very different.

Yeah, they are.

I mean, one's Mars and one's Venus, right? I mean, the president's looking for a way to extricate himself from this.

And the prime minister's interests, in his view, are better served by intensification of the kinetic activity and the continuation of the war.

But look, the fact that they have different goals doesn't mean that Netanyahu is going to be successful in promoting his side of the story.

The reality is that Benjamin Netanyahu is 90 days away from the most important political election of his life.

He's on trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in a Jerusalem district court before three judges, five years in running.

The 11th Hour with Ali Velshi, weeknights at 11 p.m. Eastern on MS Now.

Explain the influence of this bipartisan group here in Washington, especially when it came to the Middle East and other foreign policy issues.

You know, Graham ...

And thanks for having me, Pamela.

Well, Graham, Graham was a unique figure in a way, i- i- in many way.

There are several confluences that came together.

He was a foreign policy hawk committed to the advancement of what he considered to be in the national interest.

He also developed, over the course of his career, close personal relationships, not just with Israeli leaders, but with Arab leaders as well.

How concerned should we be about that?

That's just another choke point that is gonna represent, again, a weaponization of geography.

Geography is destiny when it comes to the Middle East.

It really is.

It's, in my judgment, one of the often ignored aspects of why a nation behaves the way it does, is literally where they are.

I mean, you know, when, when the Iranians decide they're gonna weaponize geography, how we miss that? Every intelligence assessment assumed, and I left the government 20 years ago, but I...

More than almost 25 years ago.

Mm-hmm.

What do you think of that argument?

I mean, I'm, I'm not, I'm, I'd-- the la- the last entity I wanna, I wanna write a brief for is Hamas.

It's a, it's a brutal terrorist organization.

It, it has a social and economic and religious component to it as, as well.

Um, it was responsible for, for, uh, O- October 7th and indiscriminate murder and killing of Is- of Israeli civilians, the sexual predation, mutilation, taking and killing of hostages.

But I think Diana's point is extremely well taken.

I think Benjamin Netanyahu would prefer what he would describe to you as the three-state solution.

How much of a difference could that make i- in the lives of some of the Palestinians who are suffering right now?

Would you call this a resumption of war if the president is saying that the MOU is dead and the ceasefire is over?

You know, at some level.

And I, I don't know if anyone should be surprised by this.

A flawed military campaign has produced a flawed memorandum of understanding, which has produced a flawed process of implementation in which the Iranians believe, probably correctly, uh, that they have come out of, uh, a five-month, uh, on-and-off war with more assets and a greater resolve, uh, to continue.

So there w- uh, there have only been three out- three possible outcomes to this.

One, a return to full-scale war.

I don't see that happening.

Is that enough to guarantee that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon?

right now.

But I think it's important and I think Matt would agree with this that Netanyahu is an idiosyncratic figure not just because he's presiding over the most right-wing government in Israel's history.

He is on trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in a Jerusalem district court three years in running, which means, in my judgment, had October 7th played out with a different Israeli prime minister, the war in Gaza under a Ben-Gurion, a Rabin, a Barak, a Perez, probably would have concluded And the 70,000 plus Palestinians, even if you deduct 20,000 of Hamas fighters, but the extraordinary punishing Israeli response and the exponential death toll among Palestinian civilians, the death and destruction, the food insecurity, the lack of shelter, the crushing of an entire generation might have been short-circuited.

I do not believe... that if Naftali Bennett is elected prime minister or even if a national uni government which I would not rule out with Netanyahu in a rotational arrangement in which he would serve for two years and then retire from Israeli politics, even if you get the most flexible government The problem of what I described in one of my books is the much too promised land is not going to be resolved anytime soon.

What could happen is the toxicity that has driven the debate here and in Israel might just be diffused.

controlling and punishing settler terrorism on the West Bank, an end to the 100, more than 100 illegal outposts that have been established, a relationship with a Palestinian authority, better security cooperation, in some respects, a demilitarization of what we've seen on Israeli policy on the West Bank.

Maybe, just maybe, some sort of Gaza is going to remain broken, angry, and dysfunctional, and sporadically violent.

Can you go through that? Which of those do you agree with and which of them do you think are not? I