Chapter 1: What were the reasons behind the U.S.-Iran negotiations failure?
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From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitcheleff. This is The Daily. After the marathon negotiations between the U.S. and Iran this weekend failed to produce any breakthroughs, the temporary ceasefire appears more precarious than ever.
One of the biggest questions looming over it is Israel, and whether it will accept peace or keep fighting a war on multiple fronts that threatens any chance of a deal. Today, my colleagues Mark Mazzetti and Ronan Bergman explain. It's Monday, April 13th. Ronan, Mark, hello. It is about 10 a.m. on Sunday on the East Coast, 5 p.m. where you are, Ronan, in Israel.
And we say that because things can always change. Thank you for joining us on a Sunday.
Thank you. Thanks for inviting us.
So we've turned to you both throughout this war to understand the role that Israel has played in this conflict. And that question has become more critical than ever at this particular moment when it appears that Israel continues to actively threaten the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran. And we're going to get to how that's playing out.
But first, just help me understand the state of things right now. Negotiators from Iran and the U.S., including Vice President J.D. Vance, met in Pakistan this weekend. Mark, where do things stand?
So J.D. Vance and a very senior delegation of Iranian officials had a marathon session on Saturday in Islamabad where they were meeting to hash out some of their biggest differences. No one could tell what was happening in the negotiations where a lot of reporters were waiting around to find out any piece of information and there was nothing coming.
And then by Saturday night, Washington time, we get word that the talks had broken down. Well, good morning, everybody. And let me say a couple of notes of appreciation. First of all, J.D. Vance comes out and he announces that there's no deal. We have been at it now for 21 hours, and we've had a number of substantive discussions with the Iranians. That's the good news.
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Chapter 2: How does Israel influence the U.S.-Iran ceasefire negotiations?
Look, regardless, we win. Regardless what happens, we win.
You know, he says to reporters on the way down, well, I don't really care what goes on in these negotiations because we've already won.
In addition to that, we're negotiating whether we make a deal or not makes no difference to me.
He's already declared victory. So it was sort of an amazing day that ultimately ended very inconclusively in terms of what's next in the war on Iran.
Right. Despite Trump's statement to the contrary, there is no resolution that's come out of this. This thing is not over. It's not won. It's very much still on the table what's going to happen next.
Right. Iran still controls the Strait of Hormuz, which remains closed. Iran still has a stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which the United States wants it to give up. And Iran is demanding economic sanctions relief from these very crippling sanctions that the United States for years has imposed on the country.
And so after all these negotiations on Saturday, it doesn't appear there was great progress on any of those fronts.
So those are the main points of contention, Mark. The Strait being closed, what happens with the stockpile of highly enriched uranium and potential sanctions relief?
Yes, that. And there's another reason, which is kind of more unstated and a bit more under the radar, and that's Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hmm.
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Chapter 3: What is the current state of the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran?
Why does it matter?
Because the main military force in Lebanon, Hezbollah, are Iranian allies. They started shooting at Israel as a sort of a solidarity and under pressure from Iran. They wanted to have a small exchange of fire. Israel reacted with massive force. And after a short while, both sides found themselves totally deteriorated in an all-out war.
And Israel, they said, we will not stop until we remove the threat. Remove the threat, meaning dismantling Hezbollah, disarming Hezbollah. So Hezbollah found itself not just showing solidarity to their comrades and brothers in Iran, But they realized that they, in Lebanon, Hezbollah, are fighting existential threat themselves. A total new front that Israel got itself totally mixed in.
Right. Israel got enmeshed in this war within a war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. And what you're saying is that Israel is frustrated with the ceasefire, not just because they feel that they weren't appropriately informed by their partner, the United States, about all of the terms of the agreement, but that one of the terms is a ceasefire in Lebanon.
Yeah. And for a few hours, there was nothing said in Israel or in the U.S. that Lebanon is not included. And during these few hours, there were like many, many phone calls and communication from Israel, from Jerusalem to the White House. And as I heard, basically asking Trump, President Trump, to let Israel do at least one more round. But Netanyahu was in a tight spot.
So just to be clear about what you're saying, Ronan, what was understood by both Israel, the U.S. and Iran was that Lebanon was included in the ceasefire deal originally. And Israel, because of that, is furiously trying to do diplomacy and trying to persuade Trump to go back on that, to allow them to keep attacking in Lebanon.
Israel did not agree to the ceasefire. It accepted the ceasefire on Iran. It did not accept the ceasefire on Lebanon.
I think this is where you see one example of American-Israeli interests diverging in the war in Iran. Same war. Well, I mean, for one, you saw that increasingly President Trump and his advisers were growing frustrated that the war was not achieving the effects that they wanted it to achieve. Iran was not buckling, right?
And many in Washington were kind of looking for an exit, a way out of the war, a way towards a ceasefire, where in Israel— there was a determination among Prime Minister Netanyahu and his advisors to keep this going longer to make sure this would have a more conclusive end.
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Chapter 4: What are the main points of contention in the U.S.-Iran negotiations?
Was Trump aware that this attack was going to happen, Ronan?
As far as I understand, this is pushed back by the official spokesperson, but as far as I understand, the Americans were aware that Israel is going to strike. They were shocked at the extent of the strike. I heard that they complained to the Israelis that they didn't know what they were going to bomb.
The volume of the bombing, of course, the collateral damage, the civilians that were killed, as reported from Lebanon.
Whoa, you're saying the U.S. did have some knowledge that this was going to occur, but didn't understand the magnitude of it, just how far Israel was prepared to go.
And you saw the reaction from Iran. Iranian leaders were furious about this and also recognized the leverage that they have. If Washington really wants to end the war on Iran, the Iranians can also demand an end to the war in Lebanon. And they can exploit this seam I just talked about in the U.S.-Israeli relationship. So that's what they did.
They basically said, if you want to sit down and talk about an end of the war in Iran, well, Hezbollah and Lebanon are part of the ceasefire as well.
Which underscores just how much this puts the entire ceasefire at risk, which is obviously against Trump's interests. So why do that if you're Israel?
because Hezbollah and Lebanon are absolutely central to the idea that Prime Minister Netanyahu has set forward about the security of Israel. As much as he talks about Iran and the threat from Iran, the threat from Hezbollah, as he's laid out, is far closer, obviously, to home and central to his own political future.
We'll be right back.
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Chapter 5: How is Hezbollah's involvement complicating the situation?
And Hezbollah had to stand down and agree then to a ceasefire with humiliating terms. This was all quite extraordinary. military intelligence, operational success. But as it happened in this war, Prime Minister Netanyahu was not satisfied just with this victory. He had to add more. And he basically said to the Israeli public, Israel decimated Hezbollah. We removed the threat.
You, all the refugees that fled the north of Israel at the beginning of the war, you can go back. It's safe.
Netanyahu is saying basically that as a result of this remarkable attack, which started with the pagers, I think we all remember that, and then proceeded with these waves of strikes taking out top Hezbollah leaders, the message was it's now safe for Israelis who lived in the north of the country, which borders Lebanon, to go home.
Yes, and so the reality happening in Lebanon was was that Israel was attacking Hezbollah every few days, and Hezbollah did not react. And I think that gave, first of all, it gave the Israeli people the sense that Prime Minister Netanyahu was right. There's no Hezbollah. They're not reacting. They're not retaliating.
And the second, it gave the military officials a sense that they can do to Hezbollah whatever they want. Hezbollah will stay deterred.
Wow.
Well, Turned out not to be that correct because once Hezbollah recovered and felt that this is now, this is serious, this is about their own existence as an armed force in Lebanon, they started fighting.
You're talking about the strikes that Hezbollah carried out on Lebanon at Iran's urging during this current war that exposed the fact that Hezbollah had not, in fact, been decimated.
Yes. The whole of the northern hemisphere of Israel started to be bombed again with rockets and missiles. And you know, even this house, the house I'm speaking to you from, this is Tel Aviv, this is central Israel. We were bombed by Hezbollah. So the non-existent decimated Hezbollah was still able to send missiles from Lebanon to central Israel just a few days ago.
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Chapter 6: What are Israel's security concerns regarding Hezbollah?
Unlikely.
Yeah, not very, not very. Second is that the Lebanese government will. go in full force, take the weapon, and enforce its sovereignty over Hezbollah. Now, this is something that the Lebanese government committed to do in the agreement of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon from September, October 2024. They failed. So the only alternative is that Israel will conquer Lebanon
and dismantle Hezbollah, something that Israel doesn't want to do. They tried that in 1982, and it ended up very badly. And in the meantime, just to give some sense of security to the communities in the north, they create a buffer zone, a strip inside Lebanon where they'll have forces that will divide between citizens and refugees. the operatives of Hezbollah at the other side.
So this is about punishing Israeli enemies, showing strength for local consumption.
This buffer zone requires Israel occupying part of Lebanon's territory, right? Lebanese land. The implication, of course, is that Israel plans or some Israeli officials would like to see real massive destruction in parts of Lebanon continue.
And it's happening as we speak today.
Okay, so it seems very clear why Israel is so invested in this. I want to talk now about Iran and why Iran is digging in over this and threatening to hold up the straight over these Israeli attacks. Ronan, is it just because Hezbollah has been such an important proxy for them in the region for so long?
I think even much deeper. Shortly after the Khomeini clerical revolution in 1979, Iran started to invest in proxies, in forces and organizations outside of Iran, And the first one and the closest ally was Hezbollah. They founded Hezbollah in 1983-84 and then invested so much for basically three reasons. One is that they come from the same blood.
They go to the same religious schools in the holy city of Qom and Najaf. They are relatives. They are Shiites. And it's not just about Iran and Hezbollah. And the word that we are looking for is Mukawama. Mukawama in Arabic means resistance.
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Chapter 7: How does Iran's support for Hezbollah affect the negotiations?
And given that all of these issues are so closely stitched together, it does seem like this is all very intractable at the moment.
When we've talked in the past, guys, you've both said that while a lot of people view Netanyahu as having a certain amount of sway over Trump, you've made it clear that Netanyahu does fear Trump. He does acquiesce to his demands. So can't Trump force Israel to stop carrying out strikes that are threatening this truce? I guess my question is, who is actually in charge here?
No doubt. Prime Minister Netanyahu acknowledged that in a speech, I think three weeks after the beginning of the war, while at the beginning he said, we are partners, mutual partners. Then he said, under the leadership of President Trump, he said something that was clear to any soldier, any officer, any general in the IDF, that this war will end only when Trump says it's over.
So it's clear that if President Trump decides that something would happen and be very strict with that, the Prime Minister of Israel would not go to avert confrontation with him. No, that's one of the things that he's very strict with, he won't.
Yeah, we've talked a lot about how instrumental Prime Minister Netanyahu was in convincing President Trump to go to the war against Iran. But ultimately, as Ronan said, in this relationship, Trump holds the leverage in ending it. And he can tell Netanyahu when the war will end.
So should we assume based on that that Trump has not actually pulled that ultimate lever yet?
Well, I think it's not clear to Trump yet that Hezbollah and Lebanon are the number one sticking point preventing a deal with Iran. But the more Hezbollah and Lebanon become central to whether this war ends or not, the more I think the United States and Trump will lean on Netanyahu to end the campaign.
I want to just end by taking us back to the beginning of this war, when Trump decided to do something that no American president had ever agreed to before, which was teaming up with Israel to go to war with Iran. We're now in a situation where it's unclear whether the two countries that got into this war together are actually on the same page about getting out of it.
And I just want to ask, is this just the inevitable result of getting into a joint war with a partner that doesn't share your long-term goals?
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Chapter 8: What strategies might lead to a resolution in the U.S.-Iran conflict?
And Viktor Orban, the right-wing populist who's been prime minister of Hungary for 16 years, conceded that he lost the country's general election on Sunday. Orban was such a staunch ally of President Trump's that Vice President J.D. Vance flew to Budapest last week to rally with him.
But Vance's appearance didn't help Orban avert a landslide defeat to the center-right opposition, which is led by a former Orban loyalist, Peter Magyar. Magyar campaigned on an anti-corruption message and promised to improve relations with the European Union, which had been strained over Orban's pro-Russia stance.
Today's episode was produced by Aastha Chaturvedi, Michael Simon-Johnson, and Rochelle Banja. It was edited by Rachel Quester and Patricia Willans and contains music by Dan Powell and Pat McCusker. Our theme music is by Wonderly. This episode was engineered by Chris Wood. That's it for The Daily. I'm Natalie Kitroweth. See you tomorrow.