Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Suzanne Maloney absolutely definitive at Brookings Institute and Foreign Affairs Magazine of piecing together where we are in this war? Suzanne, what is your uncertainty this morning? And your uncertainty after a presidential tweet at four am that frankly could have been out of Mad magazine from my childhood.
Well, you know, I think we're in a very unpredictable situation right now. The President and the Iranians appear to be in a standoff around who can last longer under severe economic pressure. The President is determined to maintain the blockade on Iran, preventing them from exporting and earning revenues from their oil production, which is the primary source of support for the regime and for the country as a whole.
The Europeans are determined to maintain their choke hold on the straight of hormones, which we'll have catastrophic implications over time, not for oil prices, but for the larger global economy.
Is and your heritage I'm going to editorialize is realist foreign policy of Robert Gates. There's a big new Brazinski and others. Do we have a theory right now of foreign policy. Are we realist? Are we something else? I don't know? Are we just making it up? Tweet by tweet?
Well, I think the America First ideology has morphed over time under President Trump's first and second terms. At this point, it is highly militaristic. It is very much forced first as a means of asserting American interests around the world, and it is very disinterested in the traditional reliance on allies and partners that has been the key to the extension of American influence as well as the broader prosperity and peace that we've had in the post World War two era?
Suzanne, do we actually know who is running Iran right now? And whoever that is, is that a group that can really negotiate on behalf of the country.
I think we have a decent sense of the most important figures within the regime. They're largely drawn from the Revolutionary Guard, but of course we believe that much. Tabahamane, the son of the late Supreme Leader, who has killed on the first day of the war and then elevated to his father's position, is still alive and is still helping to shape decision making. This is very much a system now that is driven by hardliners who have been at the forefront of Iran's most damaging and violent policies
over the course of the past forty seven years. And they are not individuals who are particularly prone to compromise or to reconciliation with the United States or Israel.
So President Trump portrays the leadership in Iran is in flux, failing. Maybe is that accurate?
Do you think?
Again? It just kind of goes to the question of can the United States negotiate in good faith with whomever is there.
Look, Iran has always had a kind of diversity of factions within a system and really bociferous debates about both its foreign policy and its domestic policy. That isn't new, and it's not surprising that in the aftermath of the elimination of the senior echelons of the clergy as well as the security bureaucracy, that we're seeing at least some questions about how decisions are being made in different positions. I don't think that that is fundamentally it makes it
impossible for us to negotiate with Iran. It has always been complicated, It has always required a high degree of focus and patience from the international community to achieve any clear outcomes with Iran. I think the challenge that we face is not the internal politics, but the sense within the regime that they have the upper hand and the time is on their side.
Suzanne Maloney with US Folks a definitive on this study of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. She's a Brookings Institution and of course writing for foreign policy as well as foreign affairs, I should say, which I can't say enough about Suzanne. Long ago and far away you were actually in Tehran. Did you ever take a bus like the four hour bus south from Tehran to Istefan? Did you do that as a kid?
I visited is Behind several times when I was studying in Iran in the late nineteen nineties. I actually flew with The flights were very inexpensive at that time and very convenient. Is Behind is a phenomenally beautiful historic city, but it is obviously proximate to some of the most important nuclear lights in the system.
What's the number one thing we get wrong in our perception of the road from Tehran to Istefan.
I think the fundamental issue that we have is recognizing that this is a regime that has staked its existence on maintaining some kind of a nuclear infrastructure. They have fought for that. They have suffered enormous trillions of dollars of damage and sanctions and lost opportunities as a result of their determination to maintain that. The President walked away
from the nuclear deal in twenty eighteen. There were lots of critics of that deal, but it is very hard to reconstitute any kind of an agreement given all that has happened in the in the interim, So this is a challenge. The US wants a quick fix, a quick deal, a quick end to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians are going to try to continue to maintain their choke hold and assert this leverage even after this conflict ends.
Suzanne, What do we know about the people of Iran? What do they want? How supportive of the are they of this government? Because boy, not just the sanctions as you mentioned, but now the blockade I'm sure is wreaking tremendous hardship on the people of Iran. What do we know about them?
Well, the Iranian people have been the biggest losers in all of these conflicts between their regime and the international community. They have suffered immensely, and of course we know that thousands went to the streets all around the country on multiple occasions, but most recently back in January, demanding regime change,
a different government. They do not want the theocratic regime that imposes so many constraints on their interaction with the world, on their own opportunities, they were slaughtered in very large numbers. We've documented. Credible organizations have documented seven thousand deaths. Is probably two or three times that number at least were killed by the regime in order to maintains its hold on power. And I think that gives you a sense of how determined they are.
This is the time that we've got I got a ways to go here. Let me start with you know how I learned about shuttle diploma. We already we already Kissinger's diplomacy covered a cover and then he reinvented it by getting on airplanes. How do you perceive, as a dilomat and someone who believes in international relations, the idea that a real estate developer from New York and a family member get on a plane to go negotiate like
this or the Vice President for that matter. Do we have a diplomatic industry now negotiating with them we're on in this war.
Well, I believe that the team that was sent to Islamabad and was prepared to return did in fact include a number of technical experts who would be supporting the Leeds Steve Woodcoff, Jared Kushner and Vice President Vance in the initial outcome. But truthfully, you know, we are operating in very unprecedented times in terms of how we have tried to manage these negotiations, and I think we see the result of that.
My answer is my deep read here, Paul is a blockade is Russell Kroll on a boat in the Napoleonic Wars. It makes for a hell of a good movie. If you read back to O'Brien, what does Susan Maloney think about the simple word blockade? When we mentioned the Persian Gulf and around the south.
It will certainly hurt Around's economy, But I think most experts on Iranian politics and on the regime believe that they're prepared to pay the price, and that they have over the past forty seven years learned to adapt their entire economy. Is based on evading US sanctions and mitigating the impact of American economic pressure, and they will look for workarounds and they will probably succeed longer than we would like them to.
Given that backdrop, Suzan, and given what we know now eight weeks into this, what is a reasonable solution here, and what is a reasonable timeframe?
I think it's critical to reopen the straight up her mooves to something resembling pre war traffic. It will take some time before we get there, and so the sooner we actually agree on some kind of reopening, the closer we are to addressing the really big tsunami of economic pain that is coming as a result of this closure.
Susan, let's end with this. Paul had the correct question, like, who are It's like Butch Cassidy. I know, Suzanne Maloney saw Butch Cassidy. You know you're looking out and you're going, who are these guys? Your essay the Third Islamic Republic? Are we speaking to the leaders of the Third Islamic Republic?
We are speaking to the leaders of the Third Islamic Republic. They're still trying to make up their minds. But I do think that the only way that we can come to an end here is through some kind of a diplomatic negotiation. And the more that we invest in serious diplomacy, the closer will be to a solution.
Susan, thank you so much. Just thrilled to have you in today. Suzann Maloney with us and I will get it out on LinkedIn and Twitter folks. Her essay Foreign Affairs, a third Islamic Republic is just absolutely definitive. Award's unintended consequences for Iran, the Middle East and the global order. Suzanne Malone, thank you so much,