Richard Haass

So I would have basically parked the nuclear, put that aside, set up technical negotiations on that, and I would have focused all the energy initially on the conversation we're having about the Strait.

And I think that would have been a much smarter way to go it.

Let's say one other thing, Anthony.

Once again, the Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff approach to negotiations is to promise a Middle Eastern country or entity Disneyland.

If you do this, we're going to give you great economic benefit to turn it into kind of Palm Beach.

I think that reflects a real misreading of most people in the Middle East, particularly places like Iran.

The strongest emotion in my experience, having negotiated with Iran more times than I can count, having negotiated with Palestinians for decades, it's not a desire for material comfort.

It's a desire to not be humiliated.

that they want to have dignity.

They want to be able to have pride.

So our whole approach seems to be based on a premise as though these were businessmen who want a deal.

But no, that's not what it's about.

They want dignity.

They feel they've been humiliated by history or by the United States or by Israel.

So I think the idea that we can win them over with the promises of great material improvement is probably a misreading of who we're negotiating with.

In terms of whether they were this close to a memorandum of understanding an MOU, I don't know.

And a lot depends upon the detail of an MOU.

Sometimes you have memorandums of understanding, framework agreements before you delve into the details.

And a lot depends upon how detailed they are.

If it simply says we're going to negotiate the following eight subjects, that's not that hard to get.