BENSON BYTE: Deal or No Deal? Daniel Hoffman Discusses the Latest on Negotiations With Iran

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ceasefire between the United States and Iran and that decision to open the Strait of Hormuz is what I would call a confidence building measure, an indication that Iran is motivated to continue negotiating with the United States to end this war. I think what was key to motivating them, aside from the blockade, was just the fact that the United States is very serious about resuming. military attacks when this ceasefire is over. I think for sure Iran wants to extend the ceasefire, and this is kind of the price they have to pay for doing it. Okay, so when Trump says that the Iranians have agreed to everything, That makes me at least very hopeful because we know, based on reporting, including from our colleague here, Lucas Tomlinson, what the U.S. demands were in Pakistan, in those talks that went nowhere with Vice President JD Vance. And it was basically Iran had to completely swear off in Richmond, like totally, and dismantle their program. They would also have to give up the highly enriched uranium that they have buried in that mountain somewhere. And we would go in and get it. That was one of our demands as well, retrieving that material. And then they would also pursue peace within the region. They would stop supporting these terrorism groups, these proxies that they have for many, many years. Those are all the right demands for us to be making. They were rejected outright by the Iranians days ago. If we're able to get them to say yes to all of that, to me it just seems like a total win. I'm just very skeptical that even if they are saying yes to all of it, they mean it because they lie all the time. So as you think about how this looks going forward, what comes to mind for you, Daniel? What are you going to be looking for? Well, so first of all, if... All of us have seen the way President Trump operates now for almost a decade. There have been many times where he will announce a deal, and it's kind of the deal that he wants. Right. And... We haven't seen any comment from the other side, but he's framing the deal in advance. It's a little bit different than policymakers have operated in the past. But the president is saying Iran agreed not to have a nuclear weapon. Well, they've made that agreement before. They've just broken it. Right. And he said that they agreed to hand over the so-called nuclear dust, which is the roughly 1,000 pounds of a rich uranium. There have been back and forth about the United States demanding... a 20-year time-based moratorium for no enrichment. And the president saying that wasn't enough, it had to be forever. The Iranians reportedly countering with only three years. We haven't seen a lot about their ballistic missile program, their support to proxy terrorists. Those things are still out there. I will tell you from my experience of having served as the CIA's, the director of the CIA's Near East Division and spent a lot of time in the Middle East, including serving an overseas tour, a couple of them in war zones, three years of my life.

The Iranians kind of aren't done negotiating ever. Even after they sign the deal, they're not done negotiating. That's just kind of how they operate. and they will be painstaking about every detail. And they're seeking as much leverage as they can have in order to get the best deal possible. So we're in, I'm sorry to say, kind of early days here, but what I would say is that the ceasefire and opening the Strait of Hormuz is those are like the first steps towards building a framework for the negotiations that have to happen. If you expect these negotiations to be completed this weekend, I'm sorry to say I have a high level of confidence that's not going to be the case. Will we walk down the path towards potentially someday negotiating a deal? Yes. But keep in mind, this Iranian regime, it's the same regime as it was before. It's just a bunch of leaders have been decapitated. But it's the same IRGC, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps hardliners who are responsible for deciding. where Iran is headed. And they are hardliners and they hate the United States of America. They want to reduce or eliminate altogether our ability to project power in the Middle East. And the idea of sitting across the table from us is pretty much an anathema to them. But we've induced them to do so. Here's the thing, though. And I would love to get a settlement here in which Iran really does give up everything. And then whatever happens on the ground, of course, I'm rooting for the people of Iran to throw off the shackles. It's been decades of oppression. But I just don't trust for the... Reasons that you just stated, Daniel, I don't trust this regime to do anything in good faith ever. We have the Israelis chomping at the bit still. We've been told that there are a bunch of military targets that we still haven't hit, many of them that we're aware of that we want to hit. We have the support of the Arab governments in the region as well. Why make a deal with them if they aren't willing to effectively surrender? Why not just wait for the ceasefire to end and then resume bombing them and these targets to make them even weaker while keeping the blockade going, which is clearly squeezing them. They're really frantic about this blockade. If we keep that going plus resuming the attacks, wouldn't we have even more leverage? Might they cry uncle sooner? Do you think there's a possibility that we resume dropping the bomb soon? I think that's certainly a possibility. The president has said so. And I think whatever results we get from the negotiations, the president will be judged.

based on whether this deal is better than the JCPOA. So we better not see sunset clauses on Iran's nuclear program. Right. We should address their ballistic missile inventory and their support to proxy terrorists. Neither one of those things were addressed in the JCPOA. But what Iran has done well is they've made, they've disrupted the global economy and they've made us feel pain in this country. How many people are talking about, you know, the stock market rebounding today? And we talk about the price of gas every day. And even frankly, I would say to the president this, the more that we talk about ending the war and how the war is over, well, that's just giving Iran positive feedback on their strategy to use the leverage they have of disrupting the global economy to get us to stop before the job is finished. And the president has said that a little bit of this economic commercial pain is worth the benefits strategically to our country. I think he's going to have to continue to address that if we don't get the deal we want and we may not. Because the question is, look, are we going to change the regime's behavior? We haven't changed the regime, but we might change their behavior, but we might not. And if we don't, as you said, what's the plan? So look, we're in early days here. I'm sorry to say, and I know there's a lot of optimism and we want to be optimistic. And Iran sees that, and I fear that they are. going to dig their heels in when they see how badly we so many segments of our elected officials in the congress so many people who want to come to a deal if we rush to that we may not get the deal that we need yeah and we know that Where the Israelis stand, obviously, you know, it's existential for them. But also, you know, the Emirates, the Saudis and others have been very outspokenly, both in public and then apparently reportedly in private as well, really urging our president saying, don't let them off the hook here. We've got them. So, you know, finish it, basically. And I guess. what that conclusion would look like very much remains to be seen, but I hope because we've achieved so much already. It seems crazy to let them off the hook with a bad deal at this point. And my strong hope is that we won't see that here from the administration. I want to ask you about China because they, of course, have an alliance. with the Iranians. There are some reports that they've been helping the Iranians with some military intelligence, but not helping them as much as they could. They're, of course, watching all of it closely. They are very dependent on the oil situation, so they've got some skin in the game there. How do you feel all of this is playing in Beijing?

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sabotage operations in Europe, and they have violated the airspace of European NATO members, Eastern European NATO members. So they could do all that. We need to fix... the U.S. NATO, you know, U.S. role in NATO, that relationship with our NATO partners. Our NATO partners didn't join us for our war in Vietnam, and they weren't interested in joining us for this one against Iran. And that was their choice. But once the war began, it would have been a good idea for them to at least have allowed us overflight. Remember, the French didn't allow us overflight in 1986 when we bombed Qaddafi. Same thing. But they would have done well to let us use their bases and overflights. We're not asking for their troops or their weapons. We're just asking for some basic support. But we've got to figure that one out and do it, I think, privately so we don't expose ourselves and create a situation where Russia doesn't believe that the United States would come to the assistance of a European NATO member whom the Russians might attack in some form. But I don't expect like a Russian invasion of Europe. I don't think they have the capacity or the capability to do it. However, Europe needs to be on high alert, especially their intelligence services, for these sorts of hybrid operations. And Vladimir Putin's the KGB guy in the Kremlin. That's what he's going to do, cloak and dagger espionage operations, to show that he has some capability to inflict harm on Europe and try to induce the Europeans to reduce their support for Ukraine because right now it's all Europe. The United States is not providing assistance to Ukraine. It's on, it's all on European. NATO members on the hook for that, and they're doing it quite well. They're providing you with a lot of support. Daniel Hoffman, former CIA station chief. He is stationed all around the globe. He's now a Fox News contributor here at Daniel Hoffman, D.C. on social. Daniel, thank you very much. Well, thank you so much. Have a great weekend. That was yet another Guy Benson bite. For full episodes of Guy Benson, go to Guy Benson.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

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