前官员：伊朗已加强对霍尔木兹海峡控制

Let's talk a little bit about this current round of talks. Indirect talks. Uh, here the president himself seems to be sort of mum on the idea of whether or not there's going to be a substantial breakthrough that's produced by this week's round of negotiations. But what do you think would constitute success at this point, given the weeks, the months of back and forth here?

So I would focus less on whether the meeting is face to face or through intermediaries. Um, successful negotiations can come either way. Um, the there's still a considerable amount of ground to cover. Um, the agreement that was reached a few weeks ago is a memorandum of understanding. It doesn't lay out in any detail what a nuclear agreement would look like. There are things in that that we can talk about that give you some idea of what, uh, the shape might be, but it doesn't tell you, um, how the really tough issues will be resolved. Do you get highly enriched material out of Iran?

Do you have an inspection regime where you know what's going on. Um, will the sanctions relief, uh, be provided to soon to have maximum leverage? Um, that's a bit of a fear. Mhm. I mean, what you mentioned there, especially when it comes to the enriched uranium, when it comes to, uh, you know, the nuclear uh, portion of it as well, before you even get there. I mean, you have the Strait of Hormuz and there's a lot of questions marks there as well. Iran, uh, reiterating its determination to control traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, I have to imagine heading into these talks that that only adds pressure. The disagreements over whether or not the strait is actually going to be opened, who's controlling it, whether there's going to be tolls. So just to level said the Strait of Hormuz wasn't an issue until this war. You know, so back in 2015, when we negotiated, uh, a nuclear agreement with Iran, um, the Straits Strait of Hormuz wasn't closed before or after. So coming out of this memorandum of understanding was really just a commitment of some kind to reopen the Strait of Hormuz that was closed because of this war. We don't know under what terms the Strait of Hormuz will be reopened. There's language in the memorandum of understanding that each side is reading differently where, you know, Iran believes that they've been, in some sense, given more control over the Strait of Hormuz than they had before. That's unfortunate. I hope it doesn't end up there. It does seem whether they charge a fee or not, they certainly have increased their, um, kind of control over the Strait of Hormuz. I am curious just about the effectiveness of sanctions. I mean, you get credit for being right, rightly or wrongly, for being kind of the architect of kind of the modern sanctions playbook. And I am curious that when you saw the way that those sanctions were applied to Iran, and you can throw Russia in there, for example, as well. Um, is that still a viable way of the U.S. trying to extract what they want out of these nations?

I think economic sanctions are extraordinarily important tools for the United States. Um, when you think about what stands between a disagreement or a conflict in war, it's often these economic measures that give you some ability to avoid kinetic action. So if your goal is to keep actual armed conflict down, you actually want these economic tools to be effective. Um, economic tools can be very effective. In 2015. The reason there was a nuclear agreement with Iran is that economic pressure got great enough that they were willing to negotiate a nuclear deal. But you have to understand what your leverages and what the other side's leverage is, what your, uh, level of endurance for pain and the other side's level for endurance of pain and whether there are countermeasures. I think in the current situation, what we've seen is there was an exaggerated sense of what could be accomplished militarily. Ultimately, there has to be a negotiated outcome, the imposition of pain on Iran in some ways caused them to have more endurance for pain because they're like in it till the end. They also saw the U.S. response to higher gasoline prices weakened our ability to withstand a closure of the Strait of Hormuz. So these tools are hugely important, but they have to be used with care. I think it is starting to run its course, though, and I want to put that into the context of the dollar being the reserve currency and the idea that you have so many nations trying to find ways around it, unsuccessfully, but on the margins using China, you think Russia, India and a few other countries on the margins find ways to get around it?

Is the influence of the dollar, particularly through the lens of sanctions and American power? Is that waning? So look, I have for years thought that the question you're asking should be very much on the minds of policymakers, because we ought to be cognizant of the fact that over the horizon, that could happen. I don't believe it has yet occurred. What we've seen during this uh, back and forth, uh, with Iran, is that it?

Moments of maximum stress. There was an increase in transactions and currencies other than the dollar, and there was a use of the plumbing that's been built to get around the dollar. But as soon as the tension went down, even for a day or a week, it came back to the dollar. There's simply nothing other than the dollar that's available in the depth and liquidity to serve global markets. That's not a reason to believe it will always be that way. I think that policymakers have to constantly have in mind that you can actually make it so that the tool doesn't work at some point. I think that you should reserve the use of sanctions for truly high priorities, for things that sanctions can deliver, a change of a sovereign policy. Sanctions are not meant to be punishment to the people of a country. They're meant to be a coercive tool to get another government to change its policy. That means you have to sit in a negotiating table and, um, rhetoric about destroying each other is not necessarily conducive to that. Look, I hope that the MOU launches a follow on negotiation that can put back in place a nuclear agreement so there can be a negotiated level of comfort that Iran is not on a path towards developing a nuclear weapon. Long way to go and a lot of wood to chop because the MOU doesn't give you the details. I would also love to get your perspective on Israel and the US relationship. Given that you are the former ambassador to Israel, you think about the U.S. and Iran. They've largely refrained from attacking each other since that ceasefire was agreed to. Uh, some tit for tat, uh, back and forth there. But when you think about Israel and Hezbollah, I wonder how much of a wrench that could potentially throw into these negotiations. And I'm also curious, in your view, whether you think the US Israel relationship is fundamentally altered by this war. Look, any conversation about Israel and Hezbollah has to be rooted in the reality that Hezbollah sits on Israel's northern border, determined to destroy Israel. So there is a real threat there. How you respond to that threat?

What's proportional? What can be successful?My own view is that strengthening the government of Lebanon is key, and the strategy ought to be towards strengthening the government of Lebanon and the Lebanese Armed Forces. Um, Iran has a role to play in this. Iran, uh, could curtail the activities of Hezbollah. They have more control than they like to admit. Um, I hope in this negotiation, if you look at the beginning of the MOU, it kind of throws this issue in there in a confusing way. It makes it seem as if there's kind of some recognition of Iran's interests in, uh, in Lebanon, but it doesn't hold Iran accountable for any of that. I think Israel has been in a very difficult place since the attacks of October 7th. Um, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the country remains a country in trauma. It feels that ther