Oliver Crook
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Appearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
The memorandum of understanding, as clear as it may have seemed as he wanted to sell it in the early stages of the summit, may not be quite as done and dusted as he would like to impress upon people.
I mean, he's talking about potentially having to restart the war if things don't go their way.
Will this incentive structure that he's created for the Iranians in terms of this reconstruction fund and lifting sanctions, will that be enough to really get them to comply with the wishes of the United States?
A lot of the more difficult parts of that conversation are being kicked down the road.
You'll also notice that in that 14-point memorandum, there's not any discussion about the ballistic missile program, which of course at one point was one of the top priorities for the Trump administration.
So there are a ton of questions, I think, that are going forward into this.
He said that he talked to the Israelis potentially about handing off the Hezbollah situation, dealing with Hezbollah from the Israelis to the Syrians, to the new leadership within Syria.
That is sort of a curveball.
I don't think anybody saw that one coming.
Basically, he said that, first of all, the deal with Iran can survive additional skirmishing within Lebanon.
But something really remarkable, he said that he talked to the Israelis potentially about handing off
The Hezbollah situation, dealing with Hezbollah from the Israelis to the Syrians, to the new leadership within Syria, that is sort of a curveball.
I don't think anybody saw that one coming.
The initial reaction, obviously, by European leaders and probably the rest of the world was that sigh of relief that there was sort of an end to the most kinetic part of this war, that we can transition from something from a ceasefire.
to something a little bit more durable.
But shortly after that, we really have the questions flowing in, right?
What is this actual deal?
What is the timeline for it?
What are the milestones?
And critically, what has Iran actually agreed to?