Jon Lovett

The two sides were incredibly far apart apparently before this war, right?

There wasn't a deal on the table before this war.

And so why would Iran suddenly say, oh, we're gonna toll the Strait of Hormuz and here are all these other things we're gonna demand because they have to anchor this into a negotiation in which there's some cost

to the U.S., some benefit to Iran for having endured this war, right?

They can't just go back to the status quo ante before minus the nuclear program.

At least that's what you would do in a negotiation.

Yeah.

Oh, wow, the Iranians are actually surprised by how easy it was to secure the Strait of Hormuz, that they've learned something from this conflict that gives them greater leverage in the future.

All of this is about making the war a heavy price for the U.S.

to have to pay.

And the goal of the war was to destroy their missile capability so that in the event of a war, they wouldn't have the missile capability.

Rubio also was actually very clear about this.

He said, and it almost is an aside, that after the conflict is over, I'm paraphrasing, but after the conflict is over, then we're going to have to figure out what to do about the Strait of Hormuz.

So they've even conceded that this is a problem that's going to be continuing.

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