"It Was A Disaster" – Former Political Prisoner Exposes Failed Iran MOU

The following statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The human brain is truly incredible. It surpasses supercomputers with over 100 billion neurons that control our thoughts, emotions, and movements. Previgen wants to keep it incredible. Powered by Apoaquin that was originally discovered in jellyfish, Previgen is designed specifically for the brain to help keep it amazing, so you can continue doing what you love with confidence. Try Prevagen for your brain today. This episode is brought to you by Claude by Anthropic. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. Dan finds connections you might have missed. For problems worth solving, get started at clod.a.ai slash Spotify. For Iran, the Straits for Moos is a strategic asset. No matter what happens here, they will continue to want to take it back from us because it's number one. They don't have a nuclear power capability. They're not even close to developing a weapon now. This is their number one strategic asset. It gives them leverage over the Gulf states in a region, and they truly want to have an element of control here. And they are willing to fight us for it, and we have got to take it away from them and prevent them from ever getting it back under their control again. General Jack Keene with me on Fox and Friends an hour ago. And he says, this is Operation Freedom that stopped in 36 hours because the Saudis didn't want us using their bases. They were nervous about the retaliation. And now he said, screw that. We're going back. You saw that we tried to talk and you saw the results. I don't know the inner workings. That story will come out soon, I imagine. So now we're in day six of extreme and strategic bombing in Iran. Joining us now is Kian Taj Bakash. He's a visiting professor of international relations at NYU. Iranian-American scholar and former political prisoner released as part of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and author of the Iran Crisis Notebook, and you could see that on Substack. Kian, how do you feel about the six-day strategic hit to take back to Strader-Framuz? Is it working? Well, good morning, Brian, and thank you so much for inviting me on your show. Well, I don't have up-to-date, obviously, military intelligence to be able to assess.

whether it's going to meet its final objectives. But the first thing I can say as a civilian and as an expert on Iranian and U.S. foreign policy is that for American interests, it was the right thing to do. That is to say, it was... Clearly, the MOU that was signed in June was not to the advantage of the United States. It was a, let's say, some kind of Hail Mary. I mean, I've written in my ex.com post, I do refer to it as a disastrous document. I think it was a misstep. And I think that President Trump is trying to now, trying to address or redress that misstep. Because whatever goodwill the United States extended, either naively or notively during that MOU, was not reciprocated by the Iranian regime. And so there really is no option. for U.S. strategic interests to continue the pressure, both kinetically and economically and in across the whole military options like cyber and other kinds of psychological and perhaps even support to Iranians inside the regime. I think you told us that, Kian, and I thought so too, but you're the expert. You live there. You were in prison there, essentially. You were. Yes. I couldn't believe how bad the MOU was. I thought, okay, maybe in the end, if it ends up good, we're not going to remember what the MOU was, but they're allowed to trade oil right away for 60 days to begin to set operations to take over the straight. I could easily have read it that way, even though the American intention was they said not to write it that way. So JD Vance was asked to defend it, and tell me what you think of this. Cut 15. And then can I just say one other thing about this? There are people, you know, you see Mike Pence, who's sort of a super hawk, my predecessor, who say this. There are people, you know, who are super hawkish in the American system who have attacked the deal. And frankly, in some ways, have tried to derail the deal. And what I always say to those people is, what is your proposal? What is your actual argument? So I wanted you to take him on. So he was defending his MOU. So what do you say, Keon? Yeah, well, look, I think there really is no defense of the MOU. It was a complete misunderstanding of the Iranians. I mean, Brian, I think we talked about this earlier. Listen, and I wrote about it in my substack, day one in which the Iranians, I mean, you know, I'm not nitpicking here. When I know the Iranian mindset when it comes to negotiations, when the Iranians asked the U.S. to change the location. of the talks that ended up in Oman, I said to myself, it's over.

When the Americans accepted that, I said it was over. What the Iranians were doing was setting the parameters. They were testing JD Vance and his team about how far they could manipulate him and push him. And it was in my view, and I warned this in public. I mean, I'm not a senior official with the – I don't have the ear of the officials. But if anyone had asked me, I said, please do not – And I think I may have even said this on your show, Brian. You do not send the second most powerful politician in the world who represents the entire American people. You don't send him to meet a fourth level Iranian politician in Islamabad where he has been drawn. Why Islamabad? It was decided by the Iranians. Why Pakistan? Because the Iranians knew that the Pakistanis were against Israel, that the Pakistanis would support them. Look, the Pakistanis have supported Iranian nuclear program. They gave them the secrets, the Khan Q network years ago. It was a Pakistani rogue scientist that gave Iranians nuclear secrets. Thank you, Khan. Yes, that's right. That's right. AQ Khan. And they were in touch with the North Koreans. And then the Pakistani, so the very acceptance of the vice president to even go along with the Iranians in changing the location. And then even more embarrassing. And I warned this, Brian, over again, is that we should never accept. This is undignified for the great superpower of the United States. We should not accept a childish arrangement where the Iranians say, we will not meet you face to face in public and it'll be like, you know, you're in this room and I'm in this room and we send little notes to each other. All of this, Brian, was an attempt by the Iranians to see how far they could push around the American delegation. What they saw was the Americans went all the way. They changed it. And then there was this other indignity. Remember the first night that they were supposed to go to Switzerland? You know, JD Vance, our vice president was sort of on the tarmac. And then the Iranians said, well, you know what? We're not coming. And that he had to say, well, I don't know. Maybe I'll just hang around on the tarmac until the, you know, until the Iranians let me know when it's good to come. We should be setting the parameters. We should be setting the location. We should say we will not meet with anyone except in public and face-to-face. What are we? We are untouchable. We are the American. So I think the whole thing was a disaster from the beginning. And then the actual content of it was even more shocking. And I think that it came from the fact that, unfortunately, that delegation led by JD Vance was inexperienced and also naive and did not have good advice.

The human brain is truly incredible. It has 100 billion neurons surpassing even the most powerful supercomputers, and it controls our thoughts, our emotions, and everything we do. And Previgen is designed to help keep it amazing. Previgin also believes that good daily habits are a powerful part of any routine. Exercising regularly, eating well, getting good quality sleep, staying mentally active, and staying connected with friends and family are all great for your brain. And that's why so many people choose Prevagen, because it can help supplement those good habits, working alongside your daily routine to give your brain the care it deserves. Previgin is powered by Apocorin, originally discovered in jellyfish and designed specifically for your brain. Because when your brain is at its best, you can continue doing what you love with confidence. Try Previgin for your brain today. Right. And I could say, you know, there's a misinterpretation on rule number five and number 14. That's not the way we, and you could say that. But the bottom line is they left open the management of the straight to Oman and Iran after the 60 days. And they weren't even waiting 60 days. They were shooting at chips for not listening to them right away. So I want you to hear what General Keene said. And I thought this was conventional wisdom. But I love to your perspective of going inside the Iranian mindset. This is what cut 11. I've never bought the fact that there's that much of a division. The guy that was ahead of the political side of his gaolabov, look at his best friend in life is Kassim Soleimani. They join the IRGC together. They became generals together. He then moved to the diplomatic side and moved away from the military side of the IRGC. Kazimani went on to fame, obviously, and became established a professional relationship and a personal one with the Ayatollah, and nobody in between. And he ran, obviously, the entire foreign policy instrument of supporting the proxies. I believe these guys are much more on the same page than people think. They are committed to what Iran has always stood. So when people say, I'm talking to the foreign minister, I'm talking to the speaker, much more moderate than the IRGC, which is led by Fahidi, I think. That's why we're done. And they're dealing with them, as if they're the good guys and the bad guys of the IRGC. The general Keene does not buy it. He thinks they're speaking from the same hymn book. Brian, I cannot believe we're falling for the same. play that the Iranian regime has been using for 25 years. I've been writing about this. I've been talking about that. I've stood. I have been in many meetings with people like Ghalybuff, the previous foreign minister, the deputy minister, the IRGC when I was in prison and being interrogated. I was interrogated many hours by very senior. I couldn't see them because I was blindfolded and facing a wall or sometimes I think I once was possibly, I can't prove it, but I think I was.

interrogated either by Gassim Soleimani's deputy who was, who was sat behind a one-way mirror. And he wanted to know, and he wanted to ask me who in the White House and the CIA and all those things I was in touch with. And I said, you don't really believe that I'm a member of the CIA, do you? And he looked, I, I. I heard a silence, and then the person who was sitting next to him that I could see by the wall, he said, look, actually, we don't believe you're a member of the CIA, because if you had been, we would have killed you already. And he was absolutely serious. He said, you would be dead. And so, you know, I cannot believe that this play is still going on. And a lot of it has to do, Brian. with, unfortunately, I wrote a very long critique of these so-called Iran experts, who I have referred to uncharitably as the useful idiots of the Iran think tank world. They're the ones in Washington that peddled this distinction between hardliners and think over and over again. And I cannot believe that we're still falling for it. Look, I'll tell you one simple thing. I told this on national TV. And no one, no one seemed to take this seriously at the time. When JD Vance went to Islamabad, I said, where is the photograph? There was no evidence up to this day, Brian. I, you know, it's like a scoop, but I'm a scientist. I'm a political scientist. I look for evidence. Where was the photograph of JD Vance and Ghalybuff in the same room, let alone shaking hands? There wasn't. Now, I'm not being a conspiracy theorist. What I'm saying is that two things are possible. One is actually they never met in person. Second. Second, if they did meet in person, why on earth would the American delegation not, you know, agree to keep that photograph hidden? And the reason is because of a very simple rule. that unfortunately American policymakers who have unfortunately not enough knowledge about the complicated psychology of Iranians and the Middle East. Look, Brian, in the Middle East, what politicians say to you in private, in English is meaningless. It's only what they say in their own language publicly that is meaningful. So interesting. That's exactly opposite of what you would think. Well, it, no, so listen, that's why the Americans who don't have experience get caught out. It's exactly the opposite of the way political culture works in Iran. In the U.S., politicians lie.

in public and then off the record, they'll tell you the truth. It's exactly the opposite in Iran. And JD Vance fell for this. He talked about side agreements, gentlemen's agreements. This was just nonsense. I could have told him, please. Waste your time. Don't buy that. It's unbelievable, Kiann. You're 100% right. Kian, Taj Bakash, visiting professor at international relations at NYU. And, of course, you help political prisoner as part of the 2015 around nuclear deal. You were able to get out. And author of the Crisis Notebook on Substack. Yeah, and it was great to talk to you. Hopefully, have good news to talk about soon. Cheers to America's 250th birthday. Get 20% off your first purchase at Fox Newswineshop.com with code FM Radio 20. 20%. 20% discount excludes wine club offers and cannot be combined with any other promotion. Expires July 31st, 2026. Must be 21 order to order. Please drink responsibly.