Mike Baker

I suspect we have some things to talk about.

Great to be back with you.

Where do we even start?

Let's look at this from kind of the 30,000 foot view for now.

There was a lot of

Sort of, huzzah, look what we've done.

We've signed an agreement, both sides.

And shortly thereafter, things started to unravel.

The Iranian delegation said, we're not going back.

for these first round of discussions because look what's happening in Lebanon, and that violates one of the first bullet points in this ceasefire or agreement or deal or whatever we want to refer to it as.

Talk to me about where we are right now.

All right.

Well, and I think it's going back to the original discussions, right, ahead of the signing of this agreement or deal or ceasefire.

I'm still confused over what we call it.

There was obviously there was this push by Iran to insist Lebanon has to be part of this deal.

Now, you could be, you know, if you look at the Iranian regime over the years, you realize they're not unsophisticated in the way that they approach negotiations.

And so the idea that they would insist that Lebanon be part of the deal when they control Hezbollah, and of course, the Lebanese government has no control over Hezbollah, you could see where this is going.

And it worked because...

You know, there was there was this this this sort of I don't even know what you want to call this outburst from Vice President J.D.

Vance towards Israel shortly as they were getting ready to sign, you know, saying, look, you better get in line here because you're you know, you've only got one ally and that's us.