Matt Frei

Number one is that both sides are feeling the economic pain.

Donald Trump at the petrol pump, he's very aware that this is an unpopular war, that rising petrol prices of 40%, 50%, or even more in places like California was never part of the deal.

And meanwhile, the Iranians, because of the double blockade imposed by the Americans,

across the wider Strait of Hormuz into the Indian Ocean are also feeling a lot of pain.

I mean, they're losing hundreds of millions of dollars a week

in lost revenue because their oil tankers aren't getting through the land route via pakistan is not yet established enough to make up for what they've lost so they also need some uh resolution here and remember it's the riots in in january that almost you know that was the biggest challenge to the regime in half a century were caused because of economic pain which must now be far more severe the second reason is that there's a big summit coming up in beijing

next week between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.

This is arguably the most important meeting for Donald Trump in his second term so far.

And I think he will want this thing to be resolved by the time he shows up in Beijing.

That summit, by the way, Claire, as you know, has already been postponed once because of the Iran war that was started at the end of February.

He can't possibly postpone it a second time.

And to show up in Beijing...

will the world economy and indeed America's economy to some extent in the chokehold of a regime that supposedly was pummeled by sanctions and by bombs would be embarrassing.

Well, but Donald Trump can sell anything as a win.

He just pretends it's a win.

I mean, I guess what he could say is that the regime has been weakened in terms of its ballistic missile capability, which is probably true.

They've been weakened in terms of their enrichment capability, which is probably also true.

but it's not decisive enough because they will still be able to keep their hands on the 440 kilograms of enriched uranium.

And ultimately, I don't think he cares about the subtler point, whether the hardcore regime has been left in place.

Remember, in Venezuela, he announced regime change, and it turned out to be regime reboot.