Vera Bergengruen

And they really like what we kind of called, you know, deal now, details later.

They want to just declare, you know, there's been some kind of agreement.

And then all of the details have to be worked out after there's been some kind of agreement.

That's definitely not how the Iranians do these things.

And that's not how most negotiations work.

There wasn't more detail than that.

We didn't know what would happen to those tankers, what would happen to those ships, who's going to be doing this.

He said that other countries had signed up to help the U.S.

with this blockade, which seems very unlikely and we still don't know which countries those are.

So I think when we first saw that, you know, I guess our main question was, does the U.S.

have the capability to even do that and who's going to be doing it with them?

What they are hoping is that they are going to impose so much economic pain by not allowing these ships through that they are going to choke off the little bit of remaining revenue that is coming into what's left of Iran's economy.

And that without the tolls, without the ships, without being able to sell oil…

that they are going to impose so much economic damage on Iran that they are basically going to blink first.

Of course, the flip side of that is that it's also going to cause big pain to the global economy.

So now it just becomes a matter of who can withstand the most pain.

And from speaking to officials and analysts, I mean, it's kind of a toss-up.

Right.

It's basically kind of, you know, the way the president has described this, it's a necessary short-term pain that everyone is going to have to suffer in order to, you know, really severely weaken Iran and bring them back to the negotiating table or at least force them to give up more concessions.

And he's been very clear on that.