Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. The United States and
Speaker 1: Iran could return to the negotiating table this week. The
Speaker 1: two countries held a round of indirect talks on Friday,
Speaker 1: and both sides said that meeting was a good start.
Speaker 2: Man, it looks like they want to make it deal
Speaker 2: very badly, as they should.
Speaker 1: After those talks ended on Friday, President Trump spoke to
Speaker 1: reporters on Air Force One.
Speaker 2: Last time, they decided maybe not to do it, but
Speaker 2: I think they probably feel differently. We'll see what the
Speaker 2: deal is. It it be different than last time, and
Speaker 2: we have a big armada. We have a big fleet
Speaker 2: heading in that direction.
Speaker 1: Trump said Iran knows what the consequences would be if
Speaker 1: it doesn't reach a deal with the US, but he
Speaker 1: said for now, at least there's no rush. Iran's president
Speaker 1: described last week's negotiations as a step forward, but he
Speaker 1: also said Iran does not quote tolerate the language of force.
Speaker 1: These are bilateral talks with Oman mediating, but other countries
Speaker 1: are watching them closely. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Nett Yahoo
Speaker 1: is scheduled to meet with President Trump in Washington on Wednesday.
Speaker 3: The issue is as we turn our focus on geopolitics
Speaker 3: and diplomacy, and what men in suits are saying or
Speaker 3: not saying, is that we lose sight of what's going
Speaker 3: on on the ground in Iran.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Golnar Motivali has covered Iran for more than a
Speaker 1: decade from Tehran and from London, where she's currently based,
Speaker 1: and Gaulner says, the situation that thrust Iran into this
Speaker 1: weakened negotiating position in the first place is not letting
Speaker 1: up economic turmoil that drove Iranians to nationwide protests.
Speaker 3: The reality is is that a large number of Iranians
Speaker 3: want to see change, and they have been desperately making
Speaker 3: that point and making that case, and risking their lives
Speaker 3: for that and giving their lives in large numbers.
Speaker 1: Over the weekend, Iran's violent crackdown on dissidents and protesters continued,
Speaker 1: with the arrest of several prominent activists. Security forces have
Speaker 1: reportedly killed almost sixty five hundred people, according to human
Speaker 1: rights organizations. President Trump previously threatened to use the US
Speaker 1: military to support the demonstrators, but it's not clear if
Speaker 1: violence against dissidents would alone and at this point provoke
Speaker 1: a US military response.
Speaker 3: The Islamic Republic. If you look over the past nearly
Speaker 3: fifty years that it's been running Iran, it's never been
Speaker 3: in a situation as challenging and precarious as this. So
Speaker 3: I think within that context, these talks definitely provide an
Speaker 3: off ramp to this regime to try and hold onto
Speaker 3: power for longer.
Speaker 1: I'm David Gera, and this is the big take from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News today. On the show, Diplomatic talks between the
Speaker 1: US and Iran are set to continue this week. What
Speaker 1: does each country hope to achieve and what's at stake
Speaker 1: if these negotiations fall apart. The United States and Iran
Speaker 1: have started talks again after a month long pause. The
Speaker 1: last round ended in June after the US struck Iranian
Speaker 1: nuclear sites. I asked Gonar what brought them back to
Speaker 1: the negotiating table.
Speaker 3: So, right now, as far as Iran is concerned, it's
Speaker 3: in the middle of an unprecedented crisis. We had these
Speaker 3: huge protests that erupted on the twenty eighth of December
Speaker 3: and grew into something much bigger than what looked initially
Speaker 3: like a reaction to a currency crash. It became a
Speaker 3: much more broader, wider, widespread rebuke against the Islamic Republic
Speaker 3: as a system of rule and supreme lead to Iotola
Speaker 3: Ali Kromne.
Speaker 1: Iran is still reeling from those demonstrations and from those
Speaker 1: US air strikes from back in June, and its allies
Speaker 1: in the region, including Hamas and Hesbala, have been significantly weakened.
Speaker 1: All of that means Iran is negotiating from a position
Speaker 1: of relative weakness, but that doesn't mean these talks will
Speaker 1: be easy for starters. The two countries have disagreed on
Speaker 1: the scope of the talks and even on where they
Speaker 1: should take place.
Speaker 3: The other interesting dynamic in these talks is that they're indirect,
Speaker 3: and from what we could discern from the reports who
Speaker 3: were getting from journalists on the ground who were there,
Speaker 3: including Iranian state TV media or reporters who had a
Speaker 3: camera on the location, the whole time, they were very much,
Speaker 3: very indirect, to the point where it looked like they
Speaker 3: were taking turns to send messages to the Omani mediator
Speaker 3: and then waiting to get a response again via the
Speaker 3: Omani mediator. So it was a bit of a relay
Speaker 3: physical back and forth between the two But the other
Speaker 3: interesting thing that happened, given so much is at stake,
Speaker 3: particularly for Iran, is that both sides sounded cautiously positive
Speaker 3: using this word good.
Speaker 1: So do we have any indication if they planned to
Speaker 1: meet or what might be on the table if they
Speaker 1: were to meet once again?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they have said that they planned to meet,
Speaker 3: they haven't given a time or date. I have a
Speaker 3: feeling that may have something to do with the fact
Speaker 3: that the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyah, who is likely
Speaker 3: to want to talk to the Americans, and I think
Speaker 3: all eyes at this moment in time are going to
Speaker 3: be on how Israel reacts, because we know that Netanyahu
Speaker 3: specifically is not a fan of a US Iran negotiating
Speaker 3: process in which he is not involved in, at least
Speaker 3: if he's not involved in directly. He wants to know
Speaker 3: the direction it's going in, and he tends to not
Speaker 3: like it to go in a direction that he feels
Speaker 3: benefits the Iranian regime as it currently stands. And I
Speaker 3: think one of the concerns is if he feels that
Speaker 3: the Trump administration is going to go ahead and secure
Speaker 3: some kind of deal from Iran, that he could possibly
Speaker 3: preemptively strike Iran again, and I think that would be
Speaker 3: very concerning and definitely escalating.
Speaker 1: Prim Minister, who scheduled to meet with President Trump on
Speaker 1: Wednesday of this week, can I ask you about the
Speaker 1: goals of each side? So, without every simplifying, it seems
Speaker 1: like Fran it would be to forestall or take military action.
Speaker 3: Off the table.
Speaker 1: To the US wouldn't strike Aron and maybe some sanctions relief.
Speaker 1: Does it go beyond that? Do we know concretely sort
Speaker 1: of what they want the outcome of these talks to be.
Speaker 3: I think the only thing we can go by is
Speaker 3: what they've said so far. Officials said that Iran's priority
Speaker 3: is to protect its national self interest and to secure
Speaker 3: some sanctions relief because a lot of the domestic problems,
Speaker 3: not all of them, but a fair amount are either
Speaker 3: rooted in or at least exacerbated by the economic conditions
Speaker 3: inside the country, and so much of that comes down
Speaker 3: to sanctions relief. If they want to avert and stave
Speaker 3: off another eruption of massive unrest. I don't think they
Speaker 3: can achieve it in the long term, but they can
Speaker 3: put it off for a bit longer or try to
Speaker 3: prevent it from happening again. Is to very quickly do
Speaker 3: something that brings an injection of foreign exchange into the country.
Speaker 1: For the US, a clear priority is the cessation of
Speaker 1: Iran's nuclear program. Officials have also said these talks should
Speaker 1: adress Iran's missiles and Tehran support for regional militias. But
Speaker 1: I also wonder whether there's a bigger objective here, some
Speaker 1: march toward regime change. Gonnard, What is the US's goal here.
Speaker 3: I think there are a lot of people in the
Speaker 3: Trump administration who are very clear about the fact that
Speaker 3: they want regime change, and they have wanted it for
Speaker 3: a long time. But I think there is a sense
Speaker 3: in the Golf, amongst Golf officials to an extent, that
Speaker 3: a lot of what may happen may rest on not
Speaker 3: just Netan Yaho, but what Netanyahu's supporters in Washington want
Speaker 3: to see happen to Iran, and the extent to which
Speaker 3: they can influence Donald Trump's decision making. I mean, the
Speaker 3: crazy kind of situation we're in right now, or the
Speaker 3: unusual situation, is that I think quite clearly, countries in
Speaker 3: the region, and I'm thinking specifically about the Golf Arab States,
Speaker 3: countries that are allies of the US, like Saudi Arabia Lata,
Speaker 3: they don't want a war. They don't want anything that's
Speaker 3: going to escalate tensions, that's going to be destabilizing. They
Speaker 3: certainly don't want chaos or civil war or some extraordinary
Speaker 3: cares catastrophic situation in Iran. It's this huge country across
Speaker 3: a very narrow channel of water to their north, and
Speaker 3: it's not good for anyone.
Speaker 1: President Trump has said if diplomacy fails, the consequences for
Speaker 1: Iran would be quote very steep. The likelihood of another
Speaker 1: US strike on Iran and what could prevent that from
Speaker 1: happening is coming up. We've talked a lot about diplomacy,
Speaker 1: but looming in the background here is the threat of
Speaker 1: military action, and we've seen the President draw this parallel
Speaker 1: to what happened in Venezuela. How do you think about
Speaker 1: the prospects of that military intervention, what that would mean
Speaker 1: if the US were to go that round.
Speaker 3: I think it's possibly the worst case scenario from the
Speaker 3: point of view of a lot of other countries in
Speaker 3: the region. And I think the reason why the Gulf
Speaker 3: Arab states, particularly those are our allies of the US.
Speaker 3: It leaves them extremely vulnerable and we saw during the
Speaker 3: Twelve Day War with Israel, when the Trump administration joined
Speaker 3: that bombardment at the very end effectively kind of like
Speaker 3: preempted a ceasefire. The Iranians retaliated by sending a barrage
Speaker 3: of missiles in the direction of the largest US military
Speaker 3: base in the region, which is in Attar. That really
Speaker 3: really did not I mean, obviously the Rataris were extremely,
Speaker 3: extremely worried and upset over that, and I can't imagine
Speaker 3: them tolerating something similar happening again along those lines. On
Speaker 3: the other hand, we also have the Iranians saying repeatedly
Speaker 3: over the past few weeks, basically since this flotillas started
Speaker 3: to move in the direction of the of the Red Sea,
Speaker 3: that any military action by the Trump administration would basically
Speaker 3: provoke the full ruff of the Islamic Republic. They've made
Speaker 3: that very clear that we will throw whatever we have
Speaker 3: at you and your allies and your assets in the
Speaker 3: region if you strike us.
Speaker 1: And the Supreme Leader has talked about a regional war.
Speaker 1: Isn't necessarily y yes.
Speaker 3: And I think they are saying that because they want
Speaker 3: to change the strategic calculation on the side on behalf
Speaker 3: of the Americans and even the Israelis. I think that
Speaker 3: message also because after the Twelve Day War, I think
Speaker 3: there was generally a feeling and a sense, not just
Speaker 3: in Tehran but outside that the Israelis may attack again,
Speaker 3: and I think the Uranians were genuinely concerned about that.
Speaker 3: So I think that's also message to the Israelis.
Speaker 1: Of those limited options, it seems to me there is
Speaker 1: still an economic one. They could block the straight or
Speaker 1: form as they could with regional partners, perhaps do some
Speaker 1: blockade in the Red Sea. From an economic advantage, how
Speaker 1: much would that do? How much could that do to
Speaker 1: the global oil market?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that would be very worrying, right.
Speaker 3: I think if we had anything like that. I think
Speaker 3: even any mention by a senior Iranian official saying we
Speaker 3: will block the straight of hormals if X, Y and
Speaker 3: Z happens, I'm not sure if that kind of language
Speaker 3: would immediately affect oil prices. But in the current climate,
Speaker 3: and given what you have in the background, what's going on,
Speaker 3: and how sensitive the situation is, it's more likely to
Speaker 3: drive prices up, and I think that's what Trump wants
Speaker 3: to avoid as well. I think this is also a
Speaker 3: question that we have to keep in the back of
Speaker 3: our minds is what his priorities are going to be
Speaker 3: going into the midterm elections in the US. He probably
Speaker 3: doesn't on high oil prices. More broadly, in the country,
Speaker 3: no one wants that kind of inflationy pressure at that time, not,
Speaker 3: you know, as far as politics is concerned, and so
Speaker 3: I think that is something that he may think about
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 1: I want to end with this conversation about regime change
Speaker 1: or the potential for regime change. So you've described the
Speaker 1: widespread satisfaction that I think a lot of us have
Speaker 1: seen in recent weeks, certainly in those protests, and drawing
Speaker 1: on your experience covering the country, does it feel like
Speaker 1: in this moment that is closer than it has been
Speaker 1: the prospects of their being regime change in Iran?
Speaker 3: From speaking to people who are in Iran, and mostly
Speaker 3: in Tehran, the biggest impression I get, or the most
Speaker 3: overriding sense I have, is one of complete hopelessness. People
Speaker 3: are really sad. People talk of feeling depressed, and again
Speaker 3: this word hopelessness, and I think that's quite concerning. I
Speaker 3: think that can be quite dangerous for a country and
Speaker 3: for its leadership. But I do think that you know,
Speaker 3: in its current manifestation, the system of running Iran, which
Speaker 3: is a theocratic state that came in after the nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy nine Islamic Revolution, this is no longer working for
Speaker 3: the population. More broadly, I think that's quite clear, and
Speaker 3: I think the reality is is that a large number
Speaker 3: of Iranians want to see change, and they have been
Speaker 3: desperately making that point and making that case and risking
Speaker 3: their lives for that and giving their lives in large numbers.
Speaker 3: They want change. And that tells you that whatever happens,
Speaker 3: the unrest is going to come back at some point
Speaker 3: unless there's a credible answer and a solution to the
Speaker 3: fact that a huge number of people in Iran, a
Speaker 3: large chunk of the Uranian population, feels completely adrift from
Speaker 3: its leadership, from the people who are running their lives,
Speaker 3: unless there's a credible way to address that properly, not
Speaker 3: just with sanctions relief here and there. That stuff is
Speaker 3: important to an extent, but it's a sticking plaster.
Speaker 1: This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gerra.
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