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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Monday. It's Monday of our last few days before the summer break starts. But it's still Monday. That means Dr. Janice Stein. And she's coming right up. Yes, that's right.
You're getting me kicking and screaming, dragging my way to Wednesday, which is our last day before the summer break here at the bridge. Looking forward to a little bit of a hiatus. We'll be back a couple of times during the summer for special broadcasts of Good Talk. That's in July and one in August as well. But for the most part, it's time for a break.
Mondays has been special all year round because Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School at the University of Toronto has been here. And she has kept us... It's not a question of being up to date. It's a question of being informed and thoughtful about the stories we're seeing in our changing world and My gosh, is our world changing or what?
It just seems that each year that Janice has been with us, three years now, it's just been from one interesting topic to another. Right now, of course, and for the last four months, we've been confronted with the Iran war. And what that's done to the world, to all of us, it's impacted all of us. in different ways, but all of us have felt some impact from the war in Iran.
And we're not happy about it. But Janice has been great in keeping us, you know, thinking. I guess that's the main way of looking at it. So on today's program, we'll talk a little bit more about Iran. We'll talk a little bit more about Ukraine. But then I wanted Janice to spend some time Things we're not going to really hear about her unless all hell breaks loose.
We won't hear again from Janice until September. I wanted to ask her what we should be thinking about this summer and what we should be watching for this summer. She'll do that in this conversation as well. A couple of things about the rest of the week. There is no question of the week because there is no your turn on Thursday of this week.
We're into a different schedule starting on Thursday because at that point the bridge is on a hiatus. But we have a program tomorrow. It's a More Butts conversation. And as I've told you before, we always record the More Butts conversations on a weekend. It's the only time I can get these two guys together. And they're both extremely busy.
So the idea of having a conversation with them, which is usually about kind of what really goes on in the background of the stories we talk about, based on their experience, one, as a top senior advisor, and two, as a former cabinet minister. So it's James Moore and Gerald Butts. They'll be with us tomorrow. And we're going to look at this issue of
How MPs, especially political leaders, make decisions about when it's time to leave? In other words, kind of how hard is it to quit? So we're going to talk about that. That's kind of the main issue, but there are other things as well that we're going to talk about tomorrow. But that's the More Butts conversation is tomorrow. Wednesday, haven't really decided yet.
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Chapter 2: What recent events have led to the ongoing conflict in Iran?
And that's almost always true. You can, you know, you can stop the guns from firing. You can stop the German, you know, bolts from firing. But then that agonizing process and this calculation of who has leverage, right? How do you translate whatever leverage you got out of the war? How do you translate that into real gains at the negotiating table? It is an excruciating process.
Look at Margaret's book on the peace at Versailles. A year more of complicated negotiations. And that was when it was an unambiguous defeat of the Germans. So it is tough. And lots of people are very frustrated right now. But beyond that, there's not even a consensus that the fighting won't resume.
What do you make of the fact that J.D. Vance is sort of, I guess, heading up the American delegation? He must be. I mean, he's the vice president. But he's there. Rubio's not there. Vance has a, you know, the track record ain't great here. What do you make of the fact he's at the table?
You know, oh, my God. Honestly, what I say, right? I mean, first of all, you can understand this as some nasty plan by Donald Trump to offload to J.D. Mattis the blame. which he is taking an incredible amount of heat from the MAGA Republicans. And he literally said it, as he does, Donald Trump. He said, well, if we do well, I'll take the credit. And if we don't do well, well, J.D.
will take the blame. And, you know, so often he says what he thinks, and I think that is partly what he thinks. And the other way, and so there's spin to this story on all sides, Peter. The other way you can understand this, J.D. Vance was a single opponent in the narrow team.
around the president before they started with a little bit of Suzy Wiles thrown in there, but she doesn't have weight when it comes to these issues. So he's sending to these negotiations, it's a political signal to the Iranians. Well, I'm sending the person who was opposed to this war, I'm really serious about trying to end it because there's a huge trust problem there.
The Iranians do, and they have good reason, the Iranians, not to trust the Trump administration. They were attacked twice in the middle of a negotiating process. So I think it's that. But the really worrying thing here is these negotiations are technical. You really need the technical expertise. There's no way...
You can get through this without having people who understand the ins and outs of international shipping, who understand the ins and outs of global energy markets, and people who understand the ins and outs of nuclear issues. The Iranians have those people. They're very, very skilled, and they rely on technical experts, and they're patient people.
They're patient negotiators, which is such a valuable asset always. This administration, judging youth, technical experts, often doesn't ask them. They're shut out of the conversation. And this is the most impatient negotiation. Right. President we've ever had. Right. He is absolutely no patience. So just on the if you look at that, you can see the advantage that the Iranians have.
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Chapter 3: How do historical parallels inform our understanding of the Iran war?
And this is the soft underbelly of this ceasefire, frankly. Right? This is the big weakness. If you're going to ask me, does this agreement hold over the summer? No. It's going to be driven in large part by whether Trump continues to rein in Netanyahu. But it's the other side of this, too. Iran has to rein in Hezbollah. It is their chief supporter.
It is still the place that Hezbollah gets arms from. And you have a prime minister of Lebanon. and a president of Lebanon working with the French, Macron, who want the Lebanese army to disarm Hezbollah. So Iranian support is absolutely critical, and the Iranians have the leverage to rein in Hezbollah, just like Donald Trump has the leverage to rein in Donald Trump. Are they going to do it?
Okay. We've got to take our break, and then I want to come back and talk about what you see as things we should be watching for over the summer. But before I get there, I need an answer from you on Russia-Ukraine. Because Ukraine seems to be getting bolder and bolder by the day. Now talking about they want Crimea back. Yeah. Which was off the table. Yeah. Before. Yeah.
So what do you make of that?
Let me say two things. There's no doubt that Ukraine has turned the tide. And they've turned the tide because they were able to build a domestic defense industry at home. And that's how they got out from under the pressure that the United States and the Europeans could impose on them. There was a message there for Canada. What you can build at home is what stands in tougher times.
There's a risk, though, because there was a big explosion in Moscow this past week, right outside Moscow, big plumes of stroke. It could have been a Russian anti-aircraft missile. We don't know exactly. But the war is coming home to Moscovites, right to the core of Russia. So what does Putin do? In a rational world, he'd signal that he'd like some sort of face-saving way to restart negotiations.
But, you know, there was one other time, Peter, and we know this now because some of the Biden administration officials have both talked and written about it in public. There was a tough moment in October 2022. when Russian generals thought the Ukrainian forces were going to break through the highway in their counteroffensive and turn toward Crimea.
And that's when that, so here we are with Crimea. And that's when that famous conversation occurred. The head of the Russian, you know, their chief of the defense forces talked about using a tactical nuclear weapon. Russia's out of options to escalate conventionally. It's out. There's not much more it can do. So that's one of the things to keep your eye on.
You can lose the peace, Peter, if you win the war. There's a risk that if Zelensky targets Crimea that way... he can push too hard and Putin runs out of options. People are writing about Iran from the same perspective, right? Iran comes out of this war with huge strategic leverage. Does it push too hard and lose the peace?
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Chapter 4: What challenges are faced in negotiating peace in the Iran war?
Stay calm. There's going to be turbulence here. But above all, stay calm. And don't get distracted by all the noise you're going to hear. And I think that's really good advice from Zach Janis. Stay calm. Stay calm. It's going to be a ride. And carry on. Very British advice.
Absolutely.
Okay.
So Kuzma, what next? Second one.
Yeah. Okay. I'm thinking about our neighborhood, really. Okay. Greenland, which everybody thinks has gone away, but it hasn't gone away. And it's interesting what's happened on Greenland. There are now technical talks, which is it. So that tells you there's more serious negotiation in there with Denmark and the United States and the professional negotiators are at the table.
And the Americans are doing what they should have done in the beginning, which is talking about a huge increase in their presence and expansion of bases. That wasn't obvious without causing all the controversy. But their demands apparently are large. And they're getting pushback from Greenlanders who are now alert in a way that they weren't before. What does that tell me?
Trump has not given up, Peter. He's not given up.
But are they, I mean, I'm not sure what we know about what's going on in these negotiations, but is it beyond, you know, extending their basis? I mean, they used to have a lot of basis. That's right. You know, a dozen and a half or so. And now it's being reduced to one or two by them, by the Americans, not by Greenland.
Right.
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Chapter 5: What role does international leverage play in ending the Iran war?
But the demands within those rules are very, very significant. And Greenlanders are now looking at this in a very different way. But he doesn't give up.
You know, they used to have bases in Canada's Arctic as well. And not just the Arctic, but obviously, you know, they had bases in Newfoundland. That's right. And Labrador. That's right. They had bases in Northern Manitoba and Churchill. That's right. Has there been any sniffing around to get back in that game?
No. But, you know, there's a sequence here, right? If you look at all of this. And lactase is the third place it's in our neighborhood, Cuba.
Right.
Cuba has to come to a boil one way or the other over the summer. because of the huge shortage of fuel. There's functionally an oil embargo on Cuba. They can't last, you know, 23 hours of blackout a day in the summer. No air conditioners, no anything. Tough to cook, frankly. when you don't have power.
So I don't think, I can't believe that this will not come to a boil in these next two months, one way or the other. They're looking for their Dulce Rodriguez in Cuba.
Yeah. Do they have one? I mean, you never know. I mean, their Dulce Rodriguez in Iran was going to be Ahmadinejad, of all people.
Yeah.
Yeah. So who knows who they pick in Cuba?
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Chapter 6: How are the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran progressing?
Referendums on referendum and the temperature heats up. It's amazing how quickly it gets hot. The difference between then and now is the degree of foreign interference in those two earlier referenda in Quebec was different because it was pre-digital. right, those two, the last one was in 96. There is a lot of- 95. 95, that's right. There's a lot of foreign interference already going on, Peter.
And what we do about it really matters, whether we call it out, how we call it out. And some of it is from our neighbor to the south. So just think about managing through that when you're involved in these negotiations at the table with the United States.
What do you mean by interference? Are we talking money? Are we talking things that are being said? Are we talking about advice? What are we talking about?
So it's all of it.
Okay.
There's money. Yeah. There's money for sure because it's easy, right? Um, to finance groups that are in favor of a referendum. It's not hard. We're next door neighbors across the border. It's not hard. That's number one. There is digital interference, foreign interference, right? And that's all we see. You do it through chatbots and you can flood the zone, frankly.
And they're not yet flooding the zone, but there's enough there now that It can only grow, frankly. So that's monitored all the time. And, you know, we did have a mechanism in our last federal election that if there was foreign interference, the clerk of the Privy Council was authorized on his own to call it out.
And the reason he was given that authority, he didn't need the approval of the prime minister or any minister because you don't want it to be political. Right. And so the clerk, who's our most senior civil servant, can call it out and say, hey, folks, beware. When you're seeing this, you need to know where it's coming from. We probably need a mechanism like that.
In the summer, in the fall, something like that. And, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if there are some that cross the border and are physically around because it's so easy to do because it's clear that a yes vote is
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