12. The "Art of the Deal" and Conflicting Reports on Iran Negotiations GUEST: Bill Roggio, Edmund Fitton-Brown SUMMARY: This segment explores conflicting reports of U.S.-Iran negotiations and Iranian "non-negotiables," such as regime survival. Meanwhile

**John Batchelor** (0:16)
I'm John Batchelor with Bill Roggio of the Foundation for Defense of Democracy, and we're joined by Edmund Fitton-Brown, former UK Ambassador to Yemen, former UN official, and I read the headline from the Financial Times, Edmund. Trump hails progress on Iran deal, but threatens huge attack on infrastructure. The oil is up, the defenses are up, everybody's primed for what comes next. Your measure of this, the Iranians continue to deny that they're in negotiation except that in their denial, there's a wink, always a wink that there might be something to talk about. What is there to talk about? Mr. Trump is now talking about regime change is accomplished. Are we leaving? Are the Iranians offering terms? What do you imagine is going on with these misleading headlines? Not purposely misleading, but they are misleading to conclude anything from these headlines.

**Edmund Fitton-Brown** (1:13)
Absolutely, John. I mean, that's not that the headlines intend to mislead. It is, of course, that both the United States side and the Iranian side have a vested interest in hiding their bottom line. So, you know, this I think there are negotiations going on. I believe they involve Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is the current speaker of the Iranian parliament, previous mayor of Tehran, previous candidate for president of Iran, somebody with a very strong IRGC background. He's a hardliner. But, of course, hardliners also have to think about what the way forward is. And if the Iranians don't think they're winning, or if they don't think that the US or Israel are ready to walk away and leave Iran with the opportunity to claim victory just by virtue of survival, well, then they will be interested in whether there is some kind of compromise. There were talks, as you know, before the conflict broke out. The two sides, from the US side and the Iranian side, were light years apart. It is possible, of course, that the Iranians, because of the blows they've sustained over the last month, have moved to be willing to consider compromises that they would not consider a month ago. And I think in the case of President Trump, you know, you and I have talked before about his negotiating style. He likes to carry a big stick. He weighs it initially. He then uses it. And then, of course, he very quickly pivots to, you know, you can have peace if you'll just make the right deal. Everything is about the art of the deal, isn't it? What we don't know is whether the gap between the two sides has narrowed enough for there to be any chance of a negotiated outcome.

**John Batchelor** (2:59)
Bill, you have a question.

**Bill Roggio** (3:01)
Edmund, what are some of the demands the Iranians are going to make in talks that would be non-negotiable?

**Edmund Fitton-Brown** (3:10)
Iranian non-negotiables? Yeah, that's an interesting question. I mean, I think, you know, there's been a certain amount of chaff that they've thrown up. They've talked about reparations, which is an obvious absurdity. I mean, the notion that to anyone it's going to pay reparations to the Iranians, if anything, there would be reparations that they should be paying to the Gulf states that they've attacked, who are not even parties to the conflict. So, you know, that's not a non-negotiable. I would guess that the, given that, given that Ghalibaf and, you know, the other guy who is in play is the Foreign Minister, Arag Tchi, given that these are both former Revolutionary Guards and that they're both relatively hardline, I think we would have to assume that they're non-negotiable or it's going to be anything about regime change or human rights within Iran. They're going to want to be absolutely sure that they can maintain control in Iran. The other three files, let's take them one by one. The nuclear file, I think it's entirely possible that the Iranians will be willing to agree to most of what the United States is asking for on the nuclear file because, you know, this is the one area where it's obvious that the US will not be willing to compromise. So we might look to see whether they've actually sort of moved towards the idea that they would have to accept an end to their nuclear program. On missiles, it's harder to see them being willing to, you know, it would be an extraordinary sort of statement of loss of sovereignty, wouldn't it, to say that you can't any longer pursue replenishment of your missiles. So that may be a red line for the Iranians. And then the proxies, you know, the Iranians would certainly hope to maintain their influence in Iraq, their influence in Yemen, their influence in Lebanon. Certainly we don't see any sign of compromise on the proxies at the moment. For example, the Iranian ambassador, the newly appointed Iranian ambassador in Lebanon, the Lebanese have withdrawn their agreement to his appointment, and he is to stay even though he's not being given credentials by the government of Lebanon. Now it's an extraordinary statement that Lebanon is not a sovereign country and that the sovereignty in Lebanon is possessed by the Iranians. I don't think that can be allowed to stand, but it gives you an indication that the Iranians are probably still pretty hard over on their proxy networks.