Scott Lucas

As long as the Americans don't oppose us, as long as they don't come in and support the Russians, then this gives us the space to continue to put more pressure on Moscow.

I think the easiest way to cut through both the fog of war and the fog of diplomacy, Pat, is to walk this back two weeks, which is that we had kind of reached a stalemate in the military side of the war, in that the American attacks and the Israeli attacks could not force the Iranians to surrender, that the Iranians had gotten leverage with this vital waterway, the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S.

imposes a blockade on Iranian ports.

But almost two weeks ago,

Trump and his officials are close to accepting the Iranian terms for a settlement.

And what the Iranians had did, I think quite skillfully, is said, look, we will discuss arrangements for the Strait of Hormuz and agree them, as well as a lasting ceasefire in return for the lifting of sanctions and unfreezing some of our assets.

And then in the second stage, we'll discuss our nuclear program.

So they had taken the initiative.

And just as the Americans were thinking they might sign it, Trump received a lot of criticism in Washington from those who either want to continue the war or thought he was selling out to Tehran.

So he backed away from that.

And that's where we've been for the past two weeks, is that Trump wants a deal.

He needs a deal because of domestic pressure and pressure from the Gulf states, but he doesn't want the deal that's on the table.

Well, I compare it, first of all, Pat, to where we were on February 26th.

And that was two days before the Trump folks decided to join Israel in the war on Iran.

At that point, the Strait of Hormuz was open.

You know, the Iranians didn't control it.

There were not, you know, 1,500 ships that were there could have moved out easily.

The Iranians were discussing limits on their nuclear program.

as you mentioned, that go back to 2015 and the agreement that they struck with the Obama administration and other countries.