George Hahn

It's a framework, or as Scott says, a memorandum of understanding.

A 60-day negotiating period meant to produce an actual agreement later.

The hardest questions, nuclear enrichment, sanctions relief, frozen assets, remain unresolved.

Ian Bremmer joined the show earlier this week and made a similar point.

His argument?

Even if the final terms resemble the old nuclear agreement, the geopolitical context has changed dramatically.

Well, first, one obvious thing is that the JCPOA was not a unilateral US deal.

It involved the Europeans.

It also involved the Chinese and the Russians.

So you had a lot of countries that had various degrees of influence and equities in their relationships with Iran that had a stake

in ensuring that the deal actually held up, that the inspections actually went ahead, that the sanctions that remained on Iran remained on Iran, all of these things.

So that's one point, is that this new deal, it's only gonna be the Americans.

And if the Iranians feel like they have more leverage going forward, then breaking an agreement that's only with the United States is less consequential than breaking a deal that involves countries like Russia and China that Iran really does not want to antagonize for other reasons.

The broader concern isn't just what's in the deal, but what the war accomplished.

After months of escalation, billions spent, and global energy markets repeatedly thrown into turmoil, we're left with an uncomfortable question.

Did the United States end up with a better outcome than the one it started with?

On this week's Conversations episode, Scott spoke with historian Heather Cox Richardson.

As America prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday, they reflected on power, expertise, and why so many voters have become skeptical of institutions.

Here's Heather.

We spent the week talking about big promises.