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Viva Towels dot com to learn more. Natural video of Iran taking that British tanker. Those guys are pelling down the helicopter with their black masks on and everything like that. Yeah, it's a military operation. Pretty dramatic seizure. What are they playing at? What are they hoping to get out of? That's a high stakes game that Iran is playing. I'm happy to see that they're leading with it on at least the Today Show for instance. Yeah. Yeah, And and
where do we the United States go from here? And how does that relate to how some of our golf allies would like to proceed? What are their goals in all this? It's it's high stakes stuff and there are a lot of murky motivations. And so we're going to talk to Ian Bremer, President, founder of Eurisia Group in just a minute or two. They're hustling him up on
the phone. Well, I don't think it's being made clear enough to people that this the Iran arresting seventeen c I a spies um from the story I just read that started like over a year ago, this arresting and figuring it out. Why why this information was released today? I don't I don't have any idea. All tensions are high and getting higher. And here he is Ian Bremmer, President and founder of Eurasia Group. The Urasia Group is a leading global political risk research and consulting from Ian.
How are you, sir, under well? And I can answer that question for you. Okay, Why why the information came out today? Well, because over a year ago is when the US pulled out of the Iranian NUCLEU deal. But the Iranians were hoping that they could wait out Trump for a second term and someone else would win, in which case the deal would come back in. But at that point the Americans hadn't put new sanctions on. Now they have. As a consequence, ire On is producing almost
no oil for export. UM. Their medals sector has been pretty much destroyed by the U S and other The economy is now under U S sanction UM. So that's why they're escalating. That's why they're hitting the tankers UM. That's why they you know, knocked down the drone UM. And that's why they decided to announce the seventeen Iranian citizens UH, many of whom are being given the death penalty for being c I A spies. Who Who is
that a message for? Though? Announcing that hey, we got your spies and we're gonna off them, it's a message for number one UM, the Europeans and others that are supporting Iran in UH not wanting Trump to pull out of the deal, but not actually doing business with Iran because of the toughness of U S sanctions and the US economy as a hell of a lot more powerful. So they're trying to say, guys, we're gonna keep escalating unless you actually give our economy upbreak because we're under
such massive pressure. The Europeans are providing all sorts of support rhetorically but doing almost nothing in reality for Iran. It's also a message for the Iranian people that if you want to get to talk between Trump and the Iranian government, the Iranians have to show some sort of tip or tap. They have to build their nationalist bona few days. They can't just be seen as caving under American pressure and then showing up to talks having gotten nothing.
So in part this is also um, you know, supproving themselves domestically, so clearly that's their strategy. And for instance snapping up British oil tankers. Well, in the case of the British oil tanker, it's to show that if you want to have transit that is safe through the Persian Gulf, then the Iranians need to have transit through the Persian Gulf, and they're not able to export the oil right now. So we considered escalation. How dare you take this tanker?
They consider it a normal thing. I mean, anyone advising the Iranian president would say, yeah, this makes sense from their perspective. Also, keep in mind that the United Kingdom has actually seized an Iranian tanker that they claimed was going to deliver illicit goods to Syria oil um, and they still have that tanker by Irani and tanker it's right now in the Port of Gibraltar, which is UK control. Would it be fair to say this is the most
financial pressure putting on Iran in decades? Sure. I mean, you know, there's no question that they were under a fair amount of pressure of course before the Iranian Deal was signed, But this is much worse than that status quo anti um. Their economy is in severe recession right now.
UM inflation is massive UM and the Iranian people are feeling and they were the ones that were promised by the Iranian president if you support this deal, which was as controversial in Iran as it was in the United States, that there are economies going to improve. They supported the deal. They was up to the terms of the deal as limited as they were UM, and now their economy is doing even worse. So, I mean, if you're in Iranian government right now, there's a horrible place to be. Ian Bremer,
President founder of Eurasia Group. On the line. Ian, now that everybody has re established their their hard guy bona fides, do you say this moving towards the bargaining table anytime soon? I think the Iranian government wants to do that. I've spoken with the Iranian four minutes Sir it's very clear to me that that is his orientation. The statements we've seen from the Iranian president say that as well. But
Iran is not run by its president. It is a theocracy, and ultimately the decision on whether or not they'll be negotiations will have to be made by the Supreme Leader Ali Hama, and he is It's not his deal. He was not the one that originally put all of his political um, you know, capital into this deal. That was the president, and so far he has shown no inclination um to talk with the Americans whatsoever. In fact, he's been taking and shots at President Trump directly through social media.
So it's not like North Korea, where, if you know, Trump can say horrible things about Kim Jong lun, change his mind and then Kim personally makes the decision. In the case of Iran, it's actually much more complicated than that, and just real briefly, I heard you mentioned on another show, a lesser show, uh, the official name of the Revolutionary Guard, which I thought was an interesting point. Would you mind repeating that it's the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Court's not the
Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Course, So when you hear about I r TC patrol boats threatening the UK, or when you hear about knocking down an American drone. UM, that's not something the Iranian president has ordered, and in fact it's possibly not something the Iranian president even knows about. Certainly he'd have to be briefed. Usually are those sorts of things he finds out he's going to find out on CNN.
It's just like widely, a lot of a lot of Trump administration officials found out about Trump Smooths on cable television. So it's important to you were that's so interesting that that is something right there? So what about Iran's putting pressure on the world end of it with their talk about, you know, trying to get a nuclear weapon that sort of stuff. How's that affecting us? And how do we
keep Israel from reacting? Two things to mention here. First of all, despite all of the storm underrang from the Iranians, UM oil prices are still pretty low. So Iran just doesn't have the leverage they used to threatening the tankers. Isn't yet pushing oil through a hundred it would have ten years ago, And the reason for that is because the Americans are are now the largest oil producer in
the world. Um, and so Iran just doesn't have influence. Also, the Saudis are cooperating with the Americans very closely on oil production. That matters too. Iran has said historically they want nuclear weapons. Trump says he's upset about the Iranian deal because it allowed them to get nukes in a relatively short period of time, and the fifth teen years they'd be out of the terms of the deal, and
you know at that point they could start again. Um. But you know, we should keep in mind that Pakistan has nukes. We're not very happy about that. We can't do anything about it. North Korea has nukes. We're really unhappy about that. We can't do anything about it. Israel has nukes, probably a hundred, even though they've never December
announced that publicly. So I mean, you know, the fact is, if an't want to have a couple of nuclear weapons, I mean, it sounds horrible from the American perspective, but it's not clear it's game changer in the region. The way that, for example, around supporting terrorist organizations or around supporting proxy groups that are fighting against American allies, it's actually more impactful on a day to day basis, and that should remind all of us just how limited the
Iranian nuclear deal actually was. It did not create friendship between the US and Iran. It didn't take all the sanctions off, nor did it stop the Iranians from engaging in all that other behavior. And as much as Secretary of State Pompeo says, we want them, the fundamentally change, Trump has only talked about the nukes. He just doesn't like the fact that the Iranian nucleveial was done by Obama as opposed to having Trump's name on it. That's interesting.
It makes it easier to get to a place of agreement between two countries, but makes it much harder to actually improve the baseline relationships. Ian Bremer, President founder of Eurasia Group, Fabulous e and Enlightning is always thanks a million, Let's do it again. Yeah, I don't know. I just it seems like there was a contradiction in his own little speech there. So, uh, they get a nuclear weapon, what if it's in the in in control of that
Islamic group, not the Iranian group, the Islamic group. Well, and who's actually in charge day to day in Iran is unclear? So right, Yeah, And I didn't want to talk all day with him, I know how busy he is. But then you got your Gulf states, who are phreenemies
of the United States in a lot of ways. Some are summer you can rely on, Some are a little wacky frankly, some you know, which princes in charge changes and that changes a comple election of their foreign policy a great deal, of course, every time we have an election, that changes our foreign policy. But anyway, so if Iran does get a nuke, what what does the U a E. Say? What does Katar say? How would they react? And then see,
I don't know, I don't know. I'm glad I'm not in charge of this very confusing, a pretty interesting layout of the situation though for me and Bremer, I'm actually pretty optimistic we get to the bargaining table with Iran before too long and something semi productive comes out of it. Um But you know, I would put the certainty rate of that at six maybe you know what? You know what Trump did and Merkel hated this, But Trump said, you can either do business with Iran or do business
with US, and they chose US as Ian. Bremer just said, the European countries make a lot of noise about Iran and then want to do but they're not actually doing business with them, and we said you can't, you can't do business with them and us, right, and they're uh, they caved on that. Yeah, yeah, for now, we'll see and listen. I find in the Iranian regime utterly repulsive in every way. On the other hand, I do get the old. Oh so we have to have free flow
of oil through the Persian Gulf. That's international laws that you people aren't letting us export any of our oil through the Persian Golf. It's got our name on it. So yeah, I could see there being some resent Well, what are you gonna do? Are strong, whether you have your own bathroom or you share one with your family, A little extra help keeping the bathroom seeing counter and mere clean goes a long way, and Viva paper Twels
are for the long haul. There are two times more durable when we compared to the leading value brand, and they clean like cloth, helping you keep the surfaces near bathroom dry and fingerprint and toothpaste free. For an exceptional bathroom clean, there's Viva Paper Towels. Visit Viva twels dot com to learn more.