Jeremy Scahill

There's so much power over the global energy economy concentrated in this small strip of territory controlled by Iran that they have to find alternatives.

I think that's going to happen.

Iran also is building up its own alternative infrastructure.

And it, in recent weeks, has signed a number of deals for third country transit routes over land.

Iran has borders, either maritime or land, with roughly a dozen other countries.

And seven of those are land borders.

And so, you know, the Iranians are looking at, for instance, at Pakistan.

Iran views part of its economic future as becoming a central trade hub, you know, in Asia that also services Europe.

So, yes, I think I think that Iran has a very powerful weapon that for some time to come will remain in their hands in a very clear and definitive way.

The other thing is, remember, Trump used to talk about all the ballistic missiles, the ballistic missiles.

They don't talk about that anymore.

And I think Iran is going to develop much more sophisticated ballistic missiles, probably with a longer range.

Jeremy, how do you think Israel plays into these ongoing negotiations?

I mean, I think it's pretty clear that throughout the entirety of the ceasefire, they probably would have preferred the U.S.

to go back to a full blown kinetic war with Iran.

They failed to achieve pretty much all of their core objectives going into this war.

Like, do they have real influence over whether or not a deal is even possible?

What what degree do you think they could potentially impact this going forward?

You know, I think I think the Israelis were very happy at what happened.

I think they were a huge part of it.