Bob Pittman

which is genuinely vital to their security deterrence.

I'm not endorsing it.

I'm saying this is reality at this point.

And the Iranians, from their perspective, they believe that their position will only be strengthened over time because the economic pain will ratchet up on the U.S.

The political pressure will increase, especially as we get closer to the midterms.

So they look at this and they're like, okay, you are demanding things that are not acceptable and that don't make sense.

given the strength of the Iranian position here and the relative weakness of the American position.

So, you know, Trump was not willing to accept the demands from the Iranians that would reflect the actual reality of what's been demonstrated in terms of the power balance in this war because he finds it too humiliating

OK, well, then what are you going to do?

You know, ending the war is too humiliating for him.

The status quo is too painful.

So it's very hard to see what ends up happening.

We're going to talk to Trita Parsi in a little bit.

He believes that what's most likely, or at least what I heard in his last interview, maybe he's changed his assessment.

He believes what's most likely is that we don't return to a full war.

There's a non-negotiated settlement that includes a new status quo with basically Iran continuing to control the Strait of Hormuz and Israel doing effectively whatever Israel wants to do.

That's the direction that he thinks things are going in.

But let's be clear, if that is what happens here and you end up in this sort of low-level conflict,

with a new status quo with the Strait of Hormuz, that's a disaster for the US.

And it's certainly not going to return oil prices to what they were before this disastrous war started.