Matthew Schmidt: International Security Expert on the peace deal between the US and Iran
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What are the details of the peace deal between the US and Iran?
So we've got a deal with Iran. The straight's going to open on Friday. Some of the details still elusive, of course, but broadly the fighting stops. The straight opens and nuclear weaponry is avoided. Allegedly, Dr. Matthew Schmidt, director at the International Affairs at New Haven University, back with us. Matthew, morning. Good morning. You feeling good?
I am feeling good.
What about the deal?
Well, I'm not feeling so good about the deal. I think the deal is basically a way to paper over the strategic loss that we're really looking at here if you're the Trump administration.
I've come to the same conclusion. I can't work out what he's got. And I just wonder if the relief factor will potentially play well for him. In other words, we're just going, oh, thank God that's over.
I think that it's optimistic. to think that the U.S. will feel gas price relief very quickly. It will take a while for the global systems to all sort of turn back on. So I think that's going to be a mirage on his side politically. And it's important to remember that what Iran has taken away from this is the regime can survive an attack from the greatest military in the world. It's actually in a stronger position than it was prior to to the war. It's more right wing than it was.
How does Matthew Schmidt view the implications of the deal?
It's now more controlled by the IRGC. And it's learned that its nuclear program is not actually its chief leverage point. It's the Strait. And it now knows how to lever that. And it knows that it can do that, whatever the U.S. Navy decides to do.
Exactly. And given this is a memorandum of understanding how tricky are the next 60 days and what's the potential there for that to go wrong?
I think that if you're Iran, you have to flex your muscles. You have to wait 30, 40, 50 days and then find some reason to threaten shipping again, right? Launch a few drones or something like that and just indicate that you're in control. Because what we don't know, but I don't know any case, is the straight opening up in a way that allows Iran to essentially charge a toll for safe passage.
J.D. says it's going to be free, so let's see how that plays out. Where's Israel sitting in all of this?
I think that Netanyahu has to recognize that in the end, bringing Trump in to do what he needed the American military to do that he couldn't do in Iran is going to end up with a strategic loss again because Iran figured out how to link Hezbollah to the Strait of Hormuz, which gives it, again, a strategic lever point.
Where, Matthew, does this sit in the grand scheme of things in terms of American military adventurism? Is this just another example of a country that shouldn't have waded into something it shouldn't have waded into?
Yes. I think the U.S. should not have waded into Iran. And I think it indicates that, you know, we've been talking about this for a long time in venues like this, which is that the global order is shifting. And I think you're seeing that this war has really made concrete a lot of that shift away from American power. It has really shown the limits of what American power can do and can't do inside the system. It leaves open the question of whether or not China is going to fill that space. And I don't think American power goes away. But you have a situation now where Europe is looking at America and saying, who are we now with the Americans less involved in NATO? You have a situation where, you know, the US is more preeminent in the Western Hemisphere than it has been.
And then you have, of course, China, you know, sitting there thinking, what do we do in our area of the world now?
Appreciate your expertise as always, Dr Matthew Schmidt, Director of the International Affairs at New Haven University. So what's Bibi got to say about it?
We eliminated thousands of terrorists and infrastructure of terror. We brought back all of our hostages from Gaza until the last of them. Nobody has believed we would have done that. We went into Rafah, we went into Gaza against many opinions and we brought back all the hostages until the last of them.
Hostages weren't really part of this war.
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