Scott Lucas

But if those sanctions were imposed, they're in trouble on that front as well.

Well, we had, of course, this war that started on February 28th, where the US and Israel decided either to get regime change or regime surrender.

And on that very first day, you may remember that they killed Iran's supreme leader.

They killed dozens of officials and commanders.

But the regime didn't change.

It didn't surrender.

And so we went through February, March, and then April with the U.S.

carrying out these airstrikes, the Israelis carrying out the target assassinations, but sort of running out of military options.

And that's why we get this ceasefire in April, because Iran's leverage is over the Strait of Hormuz, this vital waterway

through, for example, 20% to 25% of the world's oil and gas carried by ship come through there.

Because of Iran's leverage on that, the Trump administration sort of gets pulled into talks based on an Iranian proposal in which the straight is the priority, a ceasefire is the priority, even the lifting of American sanctions is the priority rather than Iran's nuclear program.

And we got to the point where you mentioned...

last week where Donald Trump and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio are saying, oh, the deal is imminent within 24 hours.

But then on the political front, the Trump administration starts to take a lot of flak from its supporters

saying you're caving into the Iranians.

You're getting a worse deal than you would have had in talks with the Iranians just before the war started, and you're getting a worse deal than President Obama got in 2015.

And so the Trump administration starts shuffling its feet and playing for a bit of time.

Meanwhile, as you also mentioned, because we don't get that conclusion on this deal, we're getting skirmishes between U.S.

and Iranian forces.

It's happened twice in the Strait of Hormuz this week.