Iran deal on a knife-edge, Trump vs Netanyahu & yet another UK Prime Minister resigns

**Jamie Rubin** (0:02)
This is a global production.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:05)
Now, on regime change, nista, nema, nada, nothing, nothing, rien, niet, whatever word you want to say, this regime is here to stay under President Trump's directive.

**Jamie Rubin** (0:17)
The Iranians will over-negotiate, and they just have an ability sometimes to negotiate themselves out of the picture. And by now getting the leverage they have, they may get too cocky.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:28)
If they have a hand on the whole global economy, I think this is also another potential departure, is for Iran anyway, a nuclear weapon, more of a leverage, a threat, a hostage device, than the Strait of Hormuz. I wonder if Benjamin Netanyahu will rue the day that he couldn't figure out a better coalition.

**Jamie Rubin** (0:49)
Not something that the United States can support, it's not something that I can support. It's the screamings of someone who doesn't care about the lives of others.

**Christiane Amanpour** (1:04)
Hello everyone, here is the latest episode of The Ex Files with me, Christiane Amanpour, in London.

**Jamie Rubin** (1:10)
And Jamie Rubin here in New York.

**Christiane Amanpour** (1:12)
And because we always like to be a little topical as we record and a little Trumpy, we need to say that President Trump appears to have employed his unique political prognostic skills. And even before the current British Prime Minister resigned, today as we record on Monday, June the 22nd, Trump had posted on Truth Social that he was going to resign. Now I don't know whether this is just following the herd of conventional wisdom or was it something that Trump is very good at, which is frankly putting his finger on the pulse.
Jamie, what do you think?

**Jamie Rubin** (1:51)
Well, I think he was hoping he would resign. He obviously didn't have a great relationship with him. And he does like the UK and loves the British royal family and probably was hoping that the conventional wisdom was going to turn out to be true, which it did turn out to be true in this case.

**Christiane Amanpour** (2:06)
It did. So let's move on because we'll talk a little later about what this means and will Trump or the world or Britain be any better off under Andy Burnham who is likely to become the next prime minister, a Labour MP, former cabinet minister, et cetera. So let's talk now about Trump and the Iran deal a little bit more because we know a lot more about the actual details of the memorandum of understanding than we did when we were talking about it last week. So the question, is it a 60-day fudge? Is it a, you know, a capitulation, as many said earlier on?
Or is it potentially something that completely realigns not only America's relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran, but also Iran's relationship with its neighbors, with the, with the wider world? Because as we speak, Iran's oil tankers are coming back from places where they had been parked and hiding like waters off Malaysia, coming back through the Strait of Hormuz to Iran, ready to be filled with oil to export now, allowed to export under full, you know, you know, market value. What do you think?

**Jamie Rubin** (3:16)
Well, it is true that Iran's ability to export oil at the market value is going to be a dramatically new thing and give them money they didn't get before. Remember, they had to sell it at a discount to China and other places.
And it is possible, if the negotiations are successful, that Iran's role in the world will change because President Trump has shown a willingness to do things in a dramatic way, to open things up. And he's talked about a reconstruction fund, even though he's pointed out that the US won't be paying for it. Someone else will. There's always that other person paying. We're never quite sure who that other person is. But nevertheless, that is possible. The only thing that I would caution, I would say about that is that the Iranians may be in a stronger position than they thought they would be. They've admitted, their leader and negotiator, Khalil Boff, admitted that the Strait of Hormuz leverage was given to them by the United States, that it was theoretical and now it's real. So they are feeling, I guess the right word would be cocky, that they can put pressure on the West, put pressure on Donald Trump to pressure the Israelis, and that they have a new pressure point. And that's a fact, it's true.
Had we stayed where we were prior to the war, the situation would, from the Western standpoint, have been a lot better because that Strait of Hormuz leverage would not have been there, it would have been theoretical. And the Iranians were worried about what would happen if we did conduct a full scale attack. But having absorbed that attack now, having taken the damage, having survived waves of airstrikes and knowing they are resilient enough, I think they probably are feeling they've taken the worst of it and they don't expect the US to invade or to restart the war. So it's going to be a question of how they choose to use this new, I would say leverage they now have.