Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action

I wonder which scenario you think is more likely, that Trump will double down, refuse to leave Iran until he gets a nuclear deal or sees the regime collapse in a desperate attempt to secure his legacy that he thinks, you know, this is going to be the way people view me from now on.

because so much else has gone wrong? Or do you see him finally accept that the war hasn't gone the way he planned? America can't keep up with this financially and look for a way out, even if that means that he basically creates what would look like the JCPOA.

Yeah.

So with Trump, I think he made it very clear during the original memorandum of understanding that he views a global economic catastrophe, a la Herbert Hoover, as more damaging to his own legacy than just ending the war is.

And I have written on my Substack, readers can go back and see that what I wrote in, I think in March after the beginning of the war, that the roots of this war go back to the fact that, I mean, there are a number of layers which go many years back, but the immediate proximate cause was that October 7th changed the rules of the game of geopolitics in the Middle East.

That is to say, however charitable we want to be to President Obama's JCPOA, okay, and let's be maximum charitable, The fact remains that after October 7th, the costs and the shortcomings of the JCPOA were exposed.

Yes, because it because it showed that just focusing on the nuclear issue was not enough to deter Iran's proxies and their ballistic missiles.

They would turn the region upside down.

I don't plan wars, so I have no idea what the significance of the moon is in those types of planning.

But I do remember that back in the JCPOA days, the Pentagon kept track of Israeli jet movements and preparedness, particularly in moments in which you have exactly that phenomenon in terms of the opposite of a full moon, because those are the moments that would be most attractive.

So I do know that this is something that the Pentagon keeps track of.

The idea that they would leak it, doesn't seem to me as particularly smart if you're actually trying to take advantage

Daniel, last word with you on the US election results.

There's a lot of reporting about Iran playing the long game, waiting for the Democrats now to take over in Congress, and somehow that will deliver a better partner as Obama delivered the JCPOA and some evidence there that that was a better regime to deal with.

What are your thoughts from the ground in Tehran? Is that Is that a Western distorted view or is that view shared in Iran, you think? Wait for the Democrats.

No, of course, the history of the Democratic Party, at least in making a deal with Iran, is much brighter than what Republicans have done so far.

And that has strengthened the hardliners here in Iran.

So going back, of course, Iranians, both sides, consider the success and the victory of the Democratic Party as a result of the Iranian-American war and the failure of Donald Trump's aggressive plan in the Middle East.

But it does not necessarily mean that the hardliners here, which are controlling Iran, the lion's share of the power, are willing to go back to something like the JCPOA.

Iran is now asking for more, and that more is now very clear.

that's my hope maybe it sounds like yours too i just i just worry um that his ego might get in the way and you know going the other direction would mean that he'd have to make some compromises with iran and that's going to be a hard pill to swallow for him

Absolutely, especially after having torn up the JCPOA in his first term and putting the country on this path.

But just to get a sense of how wrong some of these neocon pundits were, let's do a little flashback.

This is late September, and here is Mark Levine and Ben Shapiro on what they saw as the role or the non-role of the Iran war in the midterms.

And he's been obsessed with President Obama ever since.

And the JCPOA was, in fact, the Iranians...

They made an effort to respond when Trump tore up that agreement in 2017.

Hold on, Sherman.

And oh, by the way, you know, I know that a lot of people like to say that this is only President Trump's fault.

Just remember the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action of Barack Obama, which gave Iran billions of dollars, a palace of cash, and unmarked aircraft that flew over there in the middle of the night.

It did not end their nuclear program.

It only pushed back their breakout whereby they could get to it.

And he's been obsessed with President Obama ever since.

And the JCPOA was, in fact, the Iranians...

They made an effort to respond when Trump tore up that agreement in 2017.

Hold on, Sherman.

We couldn't let them get a nuclear weapon, which again, like they have never had.

And if Trump hadn't torn up the JCPOA, just none of this would have been happening.

Anyway, whatever.

So that's what he said.